Alright, meeting’s on, phones off, quiet down, cut the chatter people, yadda yadda. We ready?
Okay!
Things are going pretty good! We’re at the halfway point of the project, we’re doing fine, doing fine. The world’s first virtual hell is well on its way, and you guys have shown you can definitely take us the rest of the mile.
However, there are a few issues I’d like to bring to your attention. Nothing horrible, just, you know. Issues.
1: Evergreen content design
Telling no lies, I appreciate that we’re working under a somewhat strict set of design protocols without a lot of room to expand – our user experience begins and ends with ‘you are in a bad place and are being tortured.’ Still, I think there’s room for expansion. Procedurally generated limited-time murder pits; extremely painful slaughterhouses that award ten-minute pauses in agony upon completion, etc, etc. Just because we’re programming brimstone doesn’t mean we don’t need to try and keep it fresh, and I want you all to put a little more effort into planning with this in mind.
2: Poor flame optimization
I know that perfection is a goal. It’s a good goal, a damned fine goal, and it’s one we’re all working towards in, uh, ideally. But that urge to tinker has to be directed appropriately, and I’m a little concerned with the amount of leeway that’s been given to the graphics department in their creation of basic assets. Specifically, we now have possibly the most realistic fire effects ever imagined by a human being without using a lighter, and although that’s really impressive I’m concerned with the impact that this has on performance. This hell is meant to be for everyone consigned to it for civic rehabilitation, personal psychological reform, poor job performance, and so on. We can’t presume all its inhabitants will have access to top-of-the-line supercomputers – and I can’t help but notice that even those have a lot of trouble in the burnier places, like Gehenna-B or the deep end of Hades.
In short: we admire your passion for your craft, but we’d like it if you could also show some passion for the rest of your job. Or you won’t have it. Please.
3: Significant overbudgeting in the writing department
Okay, I’m going to drop one of my rules and get specific with names here. Craig, what the flipping burning hell are you doing? We put you in charge of the writing team, and you gave them some rough outlines and shut yourself in your office for six months. When we came back to check on you, you’ve got this damned war-and-peace novel of dialogue for one character, whose entire function we described to you as ‘basic information guide.’
Yeah, yeah, Dante’s Inferno, we get it. But (1) I recall that the writing team agreed this was a pop-accessible virtual hell, not a direct lift – Dantesque, not Dante-proper – (2) you haven’t written anything else on your list at all and you’re STILL NOT DONE and (3) I can’t help but notice this ‘tour guide’ is written almost exactly like the last six characters you were assigned, mostly in that he spends most of his time making long speeches about calling women whores.
Please. Something else. And smaller. Else and smaller.
4: Sloppy machine learning implementation in torturers
If there’s one piece of our virtual hell platform that makes me proudest, it’s the individuated torturer experience. Imagine – not an immense, impersonal hatred, but a specifically personalized and tailored experience for the user, compiled from their own search history and identification, guaranteed and finely-tuned to make them lose all hope for all time.
That’s our greatest goal, our greatest pride, and the feature that’s listed in the largest print on the investor’s handbook. So I hope you can understand why I’m speaking to you with just a hint of disappointment.
First of all, machine learning is of course the future, the way, the holy grail, a beautiful form of AI, the pathway to the singularity, etc, etc. But I’m concerned with our current usage of it. The first time that the software covered the torture pits in dog photos? Hilarious. Good meme fuel for the postproduction media teasers. The second time, after you’d fixed it? Annoying. Third time? Troubling. We’re up to six canid inversions now and I’m a little goddamned vexed. Secondly, that’s not even mentioning the clown problem, which I am now mentioning. I know clowns are frequently associated with horror, but that’s often a statement made, you know, IRONICALLY. Few people are just scared of a guy in clown paint, and the way the software keeps mass producing clown paraphernalia and stamping it on everything degrades the torture experience we’re looking for. It makes us seem cheap and shticky, rather than futuristic and flexible.
5: Physics engine
You guys have got some of it working. We want all of it working all the time forever. This is going to be hell, remember? Immersion is key. We don’t want someone uploading smuggled videos of demons clipping through walls; torturers stoning people and getting murdered with comical rebound shots; or corpses falling over and spontaneously shooting into orbit. One little moment of snickering stupidity and the whole pathos of the user experience is gone.
6: Tighten up Satan design elements
Look, I know you guys are artsy. I think I heard one of you describe something using ‘Goya’ and that’s pretty fancy. But again, this is a virtual hell for the people, and the people get what they want, and they don’t want some sorta weird distorted abstract…thingy as their face of ultimate evil. They want a large red guy, preferably with hooves but without too much other goat stuff. I know you may be disappointed by this, I know you may think of it as beneath you, I know you may want to rail and bitch about the incredible tastelessness and illiteracy of the masses who only want the same thing over and over – mostly lacking in goat stuff – but here’s the thing: they want it, they got it. Think of it not as creative constraints, but creative guidelines. Limitations foster innovations, right?
So yeah. Satan. Not too much goat stuff, okay?
7: Leaks
I know you’re all very proud to be on the team making the world’s first virtual hell, but please, please, please those NDAs you signed are there for a REASON. I don’t care how oblique or coy or playful you think those tweets and posts are; I don’t care how secretive your spouse is; hell, I’d rather you didn’t even tell it to your cats. Because – and I really, really shouldn’t have to say this again – nobody cares about the schmucks who make the world’s SECOND virtual hell. And if you get too loose lipped sinking-shipped on us, that won’t be Topchunk. It’ll be us. And it’ll be your fault.
But no pressure!
Okay, that’s about everything on the list. Good talk everyone, good going, and have a good working weekend. Remember: pull this off, and every single person being tortured for a simulated eternity for the foreseeable future will have you to thank for it.
Go get ‘em!