Does anyone remember Seaman? That game was great! Why are you giggling? I’m just talking about Seaman! Why does everybody giggle when I say I want to play with Seaman???
Oh, right. Some of you may be younger and have no idea what I’m talking about.
Seaman is a game that was released on Dreamcast. It’s a game where you talk to a fish. No, I’m NOT joking. It came with a microphone. There was a fish, with a humans head. You talked to a fish. And usually it would insult you. It was narriated by Lenard Nemoy.
No, seriously. I’m NOT joking about any of this. That’s real. That happened. When I was 16, I used to get high, and talk to a fish with Lenard Nemoy. Though, to be fair, he was only on the title screen as far as I remember. He would insult you for not having a life if you played too often. I once played for 30 minutes, saved, and turned off the Dreamcast. Then my friend came over, and was like “Why is there a microphone on your controller?” and I was like “You wanna talk to a fish?” and he was like “Dude…I know you’re high…but what the fuck ARE you smoking right now?” And then we turned the game on, and Lenard Nemoy would always give updates about the tank enclosure since you last visited. But he also insults you for playing too much. It had only been a few minutes since I last played, and he said “It’s nice to have you back so…soon. If one didn’t know better, one might think you’re a bit obsessed. It is not necessary to tend to Seaman so often. That’s not to say we don’t enjoy having your company, but you need not revolve your life around a fish.”
Even in it’s day it was not well known, or understood. It was a batshit insane concept, executed with crazy core concept ideas as the foundation, and then they just said “Who can we get as a voice actor for the title screen who will be taken seriously in the sci-fi genre, but also needs some money right now?” and there was Lenard Nemoy.
STOP DOUBTING ME!!! I’M SERIOUS!!! THIS GAME WAS REAL!!!
And we need it back. I just put a dreamcast emulator on my phone, and was in the break room at work. Just as I pressed the talk button, I said “Hello Seaman” as someone walked into the breakroom. He looked over at me like “…what did he say?” and then he hears my phone say “Yeah…hello…” in a sarcastic tone. And I pressed the button again and said “Tell me a story, Seaman” and then he hears my phone say “What?” And I did it again. And Seaman said “No. I’m mad at you right now”. And I said “Why are you mad, Seaman?” and he flug his poo at me.
Oh, did I forget to mention that Seaman is ABSOLUTELY a dick? Yeah, he’s a total asshole, but that’s what makes it funny.
He eventually starts asking you questions about your life, and keeping a log of your answers. And then he’ll get to know you based on your answers. He’ll ask you if you have a girlfriend. If you say no, he’ll say “Well, there’s plenty of fish in the sea…or something like that. Hey, don’t look at ME that way! I’m not lonely enough to date YOU! sigh Though, I suppose I could do worse. You DO take pretty good care of me.”
We all have a device in our pockets right now that has a microphone, and we can all have fun in public getting weird looks. WE NEED A NEW SEAMAN GAME!!! Preferably as an app on our phones, but I’ll take console/pc ports. Whatever gets me talking to a fish.
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To this day, if I turn to my best friend and say “sup”, his response will either be “Oh, not much, just… keeping it real.” or just “Word.” Vice versa as well.
These are the exact responses Seaman gives, which we deliver with proper intonation and all.
What I really remember about the game was how fucking shitty the microphone was. I literally went through 9 of the fucking things before I just gave up on it. They would just stop working for no good reason. Quite possibly the worst hardware accessory for the Dreamcast.
Maybe if they made it for PC I might actually get to have some fun for more than an hour or two with it, since I’d be able to use a good microphone.
…I think you might have just been thinking a game released in 2000, so probably in development in 1996, and running on dreamcast hardware would ever do great things with human voice translation.
I’ve only ever had 1 mic. It still works today. I mean the software was never great at understanding, but you gotta remember it’s essentially a glorified tamagachi with hardware ambitions that were probably pushing the breaking point of technology of the dreamcast.
I know it was the mic itself in my case, because the accessory also could be used in Quake 3 Arena and a few other online games for voice chat and it literally just stopped picking up sound after some time.
It wasn’t that seaman would just hear me wrong. The thing was cheaply made so it doesn’t really surprise me. But it also sucked that there wasn’t any other mics for the system, like there were VMUs.
Did you live in a home with smokers? Or with pets that might shed hair?
Oh wow, this was actually a thing.
I know! I KNEW I had to repeatedly emphasize that I’m not joking. I KNEW it sounded batshit insane from the perspective of someone who’s never heard of it. And even after all the reassurance from me that it DID exist, your first instinct was still “This guys full of shit! Let’s confirm with google…oh.”
With improved voice recognition, it could be great.
I’d definitely give it another go.
I also wouldn’t hate a game that connected to an AI LLM for conversations. That could be interesting, especially with a game like Seaman wrapped around the communications.
Loved that game! It would be awesome on a phone as long as they don’t to shit like locking extra food behind microtransactions. 😬
Don’t you give them ideas!!!
“Do you like yourself? I bet you like yourself twice a day” 🤣
I see you watched that AVGN video also…
No, I played this game 24 years ago. I’m sure he made some “seaman” jokes, just like he probably made jokes about having worms if he ever played worms armageddon. Those are just old jokes.
