★★★★★ Groundbreaking
From a unique era of game design, Seaman for Sega Dreamcast is a testament to human imagination and technology. The game is a pet simulator using voice input to speak with your pet, a man of the sea. While your pet can be sassy and even horrific, confusion is soothed away by Leonard Nimoy’s narration. Can you make Spock proud by guiding Seaman through nightmarish life stages?
(Skip to the last section to avoid any spoilers.)
Childhood Whimsy
Seaman starts off as eggs and then eye tadpoles, which you feed to a squid. The squid spasms until dying as the baby seamen burst forth in a twisted birth. These babies are cute and fun to talk to. However, they consume and liquefy one another through their head tubes, which Nimoy reassured me is normal.
Teen Troubles
When the survivors hit puberty, they have learned English and ask you personal questions such as your marital status, to which they give catty and cynical responses. They even remember your answers to better taunt you with.
To feed these adolescents’ appetites, you start raising caterpillar-men. The siblings continue their deadly competition until only two remain, who then have sex by connecting their tubes, and the top perishes. I don’t know what happens after that unfortunately because I stopped feeding Seaman.
Adult Wisdom?
I didn’t make it to the end of Seaman’s life, and I don’t feel guilty. I know he would treat me the same. The biggest obstacle to playing Seaman today is finding a good emulator to run the game that can incorporate mic input. I played the game on my Android phone, but the voice input barely worked, delaying progression in the fascinating conversation mechanics.
Another challenge inherent in the gameplay is that you have to plan Seaman’s feeding schedule carefully or you may run out of food and have to restart the whole game. If the mic were not frustrating to use, replaying would be a little easier. Like pet simulators of the time, you also have to check on him every day in real time. Raising Seaman is a serious commitment.
Putting some effort into at least trying the game is absolutely worth it, especially if you like surreal experiences. While today we have unending remakes of the same ideas, Seaman is like a message from another world, reminding us how alien the computer age can feel.
