NOEMATICA: Digital Dollhouse

Behold the humble Noem! Beguiling and silly-pilled, fully customizable, monstrous or adorable: with an n-dimensional vector space of fantasies and memories. Walk downtown and buy a length of fabric; let your critter sew herself a dress. Of course you can always step in yourself and assume direct control of your digital dolls — but it's fun to watch the mischief they get up to on their own.

Noematica is a life simulation: a phantasmagoric impression of contemporary life in an urban digital dollhouse. Constructed top-to-bottom with a focus on simulation fidelity, Noematica centres the organic interplay of matter and memory — the way the world acts on us, the way it makes us feel . . .

See, Noems are awfully complex creatures. Each and every one of them has a playful mind of their own. When they encounter something important in the world, they remember it. When they run into a problem, their competence is determined by their established memories: not just a 'painting skill', but a memory of painting under such-and-such conditions, combined with some traumatic recollection, a complex of related occurrences all more or less vaguely recalled.

What cause occasions these noemish explorations? Partly fantasies (which arise from the interplay of memories) and partly physical constraints (hunger, thirst, exhaustion, and the like). Between these two is a simulated chemical brain, with neurotransmitters, GABA receptors, &c. Such is our tripartate model of the noemen mind: an impressionable nervous substrate, maintained by chemicals, running on calories.

Here's an exemplary Noemhouse. Or rather, Noempartment. Your Noem can have whatever strikes her fancy, provided she has the means. Changes to the structure and furnishings of your noem-habitat can be made in exacting detail, with some difficulty. Walls take time to build. Swapping the upholstery on some divan or couch will surely take at least a little skill. In some cases, money is enough to get you by— accrued from odd jobs, managed in real time out around the city — but the ease of e-commerce is certainly a thing of future-past. If you want the Good Stuff, I mean the absolute top-of-the-line, your Noem will be have to hunt the curio shop herself; or else, improve her reputation with a social group.

Social group? While introverted Noems pass the night indoors, the world keeps trundling by outside. Every apartment is part of a building. Every building is part of a neighbourhood. At each level, critical values are fully simulated: public health, public works, social relationships, inter-group politics, &c.

All of this, in a city out of time: great towers all reeling in twilight without limit, and sleepless nights that never seem to end. Or the swampshack industrial wasteland, if you prefer. Use your accrued social and political capital (and energy, and funds in the public treasury) to rezone, redistrict, redevelop, and otherwise mutilate the neighbourhood. Then watch your changes play out in real time as they proliferate in the lives of everyday Noems.

Listen: Noematica will NEVER charge you for DLC. We intend to release a single complete game at full price, a single distinct project with its own voice, easily customized with in-game tools and community-made modifications. In the long run, we intend to make other Noematica games: more digital worlds with their own unique qualities. Any core engine change will be backported to previous Noeamatica efforts (insofar as this is technically possible) to help modders with their work. Assets will be made interoperable, for custom games with mixed themes.

A game with ten expansions is invariably very muddled. It is better to have ten games, each speaking in their own voice, in an open, cross-compatible mod ecosystem. Noematica is not (will never be) a platform. We want to be equal partners with a community of DIY content creators, hackers and modders and so on. You're all awfully talented, and we hope you're willing to join us — at the end of the world, where flickering stars illuminate NOEMATICA.