Pics 90: Paula's In The Air

Last path to update is the Paula path "Something's In The Air" where the game itself gets its name.  The biggest issue with updating the path is how many sets and settings there are. It opens in a video game (more info in next week's picture collection), then involves a downtown scavenger hunt.

One change I made to the game was to get rid of the weird QR code puzzle that never really worked right.  QR Codes were a hot item in 2012 when I originally made the game with a whole "geo-code" fad happening. But like most fads it still exists but no one thinks about it anymore. So I replaced the QR Code with this promotional picture of the Downtown Merchants Association, because business people self promoting themselves is not a trend that will go away. This "full" picture is a Patreon exclusive: I edited it into a puzzle for the game itself.

From the scavenger hunt, you end up at a LAN party, which is still a thing, but thanks to Covid-19 and better broadband, these are conducted remotely most often. I kept the characters which are very loosely based on The Guild, which was a popular web series in 2012.

I was thinking of swapping out the cultural references to "Fringe" and "The Guild" for more recent ones. My biggest question is, what new content is there worth referencing?

We seem to be in a cultural malaise right now. We spent the pandemic sharing memes and GIFs and and they have become passe. Geek culture has become fragmented and too commercialized to the point nobody cares. Yes, Disney this includes MCU and Star Wars.

The small amount of what might be called "cultural phenomenons" like Bridgerton, Squid Game, Stranger Things, House of Dragons, The Boys, and Rings of Power all kind of fizzled as soon as the newest seasons did.  The Arrowverse is dead, and the most popular TV show for the last three years is "Yellowstone" (nothing against the show, it is just not a show that people sit around and discuss).

What does this say about our current culture?  Is it an obvious sign of decline?  Anyways, those are rhetorical questions.  Speaking of which...

The only "cultural relevant" content worth referencing these days seems to be political and corporate scandal.  Currently in the game, if you sit down to dinner with Ariane, and ask about her day, she goes on a long rant about her bad day referencing a bunch of cut content as an easter egg / inside joke.  I decided to do like the ice cream parlor scene and flashback visualize some of this rant.

This includes a rant about lunch with her work colleagues where the women at the company are sent to the wrong place. I did not intend to make this about the numerous sexism scandals in the tech sector -- I was more interested in avoiding having to make a large crowd scene with mostly male figures -- but since that is what it became, I decided to use it, naming the gaming company RelatiVision Games.

I use a font that looks suspiciously like ActiVision where sexism accusations seem to be non-stop and are hurting their $70 Billion acquisition by Microsoft. Having actually worked for all of two months for a similar Silicon Valley start up company, I can assure you the sexism is pretty systemic in the whole sector and not limited to a couple of bad companies.

The venue of this lunch has changed to the fancy restaurant downtown.  I had intended to make a new set for the lunch, but then realized I already have a nice restaurant set with lighting, textures, and background characters I have barely used so far.