January 31st 2012, George Washington University

It’s official then. Genesis of the Gods begins on the evening of Tuesday January 31st, 2012, in an office in the Classical Studies department of George Washington University. And unless you can find the eight Sibylline books that will tell you how to defeat Ouranos (avatar of the Universe), planet Earth will be wiped clean of life twenty-four hours later (our time).

Why January 31st 2012? It’s an end-of-the-world scenario and 2012 is a popular date (thanks to the end of the Mayan Long Count). I Googled “2012″ and noticed that 433 Eros passes very close to Earth on January 31st. 433 Eros is the second largest near-Earth asteroid, and first one to be discovered (back in 1898). More important, Genesis of the Gods begins with the death of Eros, the first and last god, so it seems like a good date.

I like stories with specific dates and places: it makes them feel more real. My only concern is that if GWU doesn’t like the game they could sue me! I’ll have to add references to how it’s a world-renowned center of excellence.

Question for Alex:

The game starts with the death of a classics professor, but I don’t have a name yet. Do you know any real professors who would be happy for me to use their name? In the game, professor [name] is a high profile atheist and world expert on the Greek gods, who has just made a shocking (undisclosed) discovery. You discover him/her slumped over his/her desk, dead, with a bullet to the head. The first task in the game is to find out how he/she died – suicide? Crazy Fundamentalist Christian? Fundamentalist atheist who feels the professor was going to get religion and damage the cause? Secret government agency didn’t want the truth coming out? Other?

I’d love to give the professor the name of a real professor at GWU. A real person who doesn’t mind if I use his/her name. Does such a person exist? If dying on Jan 31st 2012 bothers them I can change the game so they’re reborn at the end (just in time to mark their students papers if the world doesn’t end).

I don’t need to name until late November – it can be added near the end. If more than one professor is willing to have their name used maybe the GWU students would like to vote on who they would like to star in the game?

Come to think of it, I’ll need a genuine student as well, to be a friend of Peri at the university.

More details about appearing in the game: on Thursday I’ll upload an improved version of the auditions page, and put out a press release. (I planned to do that yesterday, but I find myself unexpectedly animal-sitting at my sister’s croft until Wednesday).

What’s this about Peri being at a university?

As I mentioned yesterday, I think it was a mistake to make Peri’s identity and location too vague. She needs a definite base on Earth, so that players can identify with her. A university is a good start, as it naturally connects with all kinds of other ideas, and interesting people pass through all the time. Plus, a lot of people who read game web sites are at university

However, I established in the first two stories that Peri was born in nineteen century Paris and can’t be seen or touch anything on Earth: how do I solve that problem? Easy. Even in the first game it was hinted that Peri had previous lives. So the rule is: Peri can live AS ONE PERSON in each story. Either she can be born there, or just pass through (as long as it makes sense for total strangers to appear, like at a university where you might often get foreign students coming and going). In Les Miserables, Peri was born and died as a baby. That means she could not then come back as another physical person. In the Divine Comedy she had already lived as Beatrice (although she could not remember the details). This means she could only do things that Beatrice would do: that is, she could not appear in Hell except in jobs normally assigned to heavenly angels, but she could appear all the time in heaven, because that would be appropriate for the mortal Beatrice who Dante knew.

To summarize: In Les Miserables, Peri lived and died as a baby, just before the story began. In the Divine Comedy, Peri lived and died as Beatrice, a few years before the story began. In Genesis of the Gods, Peri lives (and continues to live) as a student at GWU.

Should Peri be born in modern times?

Peri can be reincarnated and born new on Earth for each story. But it’s not essential. I’m not decided whether Peri should have grown up near GWU or not. I’d like it, as I’ll be returning to this location in future stories, so it’s a major place for her to live. It might help players to identify with her:  “Hey, maybe I am a reincarnated angel like Peri,and I never realized until now!”

But it might be confusing to players: if Peri is in an every-second-counts scenario, how can she afford eighteen years to be born and grow up?

Of course, being born near GWU is not really a problem: as a time traveler she can take as long as she likes to prepare for a problem, but the clock is still ticking toward January 31st 2012.  And she can’t go back over her own time frame to try things again and again (except for users loading saved games!).

But on balance I think it would be make the game feel less urgent. I think it feels more exciting if Peri just enrolled at the University a few weeks earlier. So where er Peri is, there is action! And no eighteen year waits while she grows up in each story.

A compromise might be for Peri to appear on Earth, and then (due to time lines automatically correcting themselves), memories and records of her earlier life instantly appear. So everyone remembers growing up with her, even though she only appeared yesterday.

What do you think?