A little under 25 years ago, a particularly bizarre game was released for Sega’s Dreamcast. In actually, calling it a “game” might be something of a stretch. It was more of a pet simulator, where you need to feed and care for a virtual animal as it grows. Except rather than something like a dog or a rabbit, your pet is a talking fish with a human face that doesn’t seem to like you very much. Oh, and Leonard Nimoy is there too for some reason.
Most people in the world don’t even know this game ever existed, and frankly, their lives are all the better for it. But for those who lovingly cared for (or intentionally killed) one of these rude creatures back in the early 2000s, it’s an experience that sticks with you. Which we assume is why [Robert Prest] decided to build this incredibly faithful physical recreation of Seaman.
The creature itself is a wireless animatronic that’s been fitted with several servos to operate not just its creepy human mouth, but its flippers, legs, and tail. [Robert] pulled the original speech clips from the game, and recreated most of the voice recognition prompts so he can converse with his pet monster. A Dreamcast controller is used to interact with the robo-seaman, but even that’s a bit of a hack. It’s actually just the shell of the controller which has been filled with new hardware, namely an ESP8266 and Nokia LCD that take the place of the original Visual Memory Unit (VMU).
[Robert] went the extra mile and also recreated the tank the creature lives in. The front glass is actually a transparent display that can show game information or “water”, and there’s sonar sensors that can detect when somebody has reached into it. The original game’s interactive elements involved adjusting the temperature of the tank and feeding your growing abomination, which are represented in this physical incarnation. There’s even little 3D printed versions of the bugs (which incidentally also have human faces) raise as food for the creature.
While this might not be our ideal office decoration, but we’ve got to hand it to [Robert], he did a hell of job bringing Seaman to life. Now let’s just hope it doesn’t escape its tank and get into the wild.
Awesome!
I mean, talk about feature creep, but still, an awesome work on this project!
Thank you – yea it’s always the way. I could finish this project…or I could focus on the new shiny. Then I can put off the hardest part: documenting anything.
Feature creep is OK if you’re having fun :)
was anyone else reminded of the scene near the beginning of The Meaning of Life (1983) by Monty Python where the fish (with human faces) enter view saying “Morning” and one of them says “Howard’s being eaten!”
I wouldn’t be surprised if that scene was inspiration for Seaman
Pre-dating that were the ants with human-like faces in the excellent Outer Limits episode ‘The Zanti Misfits’ aired December 1963.
It reminds me of something out of a Tool video.
Yeah, right. But this being a fish, does have the same “Pneuma” as surface dwellers?
+100 ! I instantly remembered the same scene.
Was Seaman modeled after Elon Musk?
Ahhh I should have realized that. Thanks!
Was this the only game to use the Dreamcast Microphone? Or am I misremembering an N64 controller addon?
A handful of Japanese games like alien front online and planet ring made use of the mic as well.
Billy Bass merman nightmare fuel. Love it. Great work.