time machine // database // travel guide
timespace coordinates: ‘The City’, a dark fantasy world inspired by Victorian, Gothic, and steampunk aesthetics.
Thief is a stealth video game developed by Eidos Montréal, published by Square Enix, and released in February 2014 for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows video gaming platforms. Feral Interactive brought the game to macOS in November 2015. It is a revival of the cult classic Thief video game series of which it is the fourth installment. Initially announced in 2009 as Thief 4, it was later announced in 2013 that the game is a reboot for the series. (wiki)
Nuclear Throne is a post-apocalyptic roguelike-like top-down shooter. Not ‘the final hope of humanity’ post-apocalyptic, but ‘humanity is extinct and mutants and monsters now roam the world’ post-apocalyptic. Fight your way through the wastelands with powerful weaponry, collecting radiation to mutate some new limbs and abilities. All these things and more you could do if only you were good at this game. Can you reach the Nuclear Throne? (steam)
Nuclear Throne is a top-down shooter roguelike video game by Vlambeer. Early prototypes of the game were distributed through Steam’s early access program in 2013. Nuclear Throne was released on December 5, 2015, for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita platforms, with an Xbox One release due in the future. (wiki)
http://nuclearthrone.com/ / Nuclear Throne Wiki
timespace coordinates: late 8th century at the border of Helheim
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is a dark fantasy action-adventure game developed and published by the British video game development studio Ninja Theory. Self-described as an “independent AAA game“, it was created by a team of approximately twenty developers led by writer and director Tameem Antoniades.
Inspired by Norse mythology and Celtic culture, Hellblade follows Senua, a Pict warrior who must make her way to Helheim by defeating otherworldly entities and facing their challenges, in order to rescue the soul of her dead lover from the goddess Hela. In parallel, the game acts as a metaphor for the character’s struggle with psychosis, as Senua, who suffers from the condition but believes it to be a curse, is haunted by an entity known as the “Darkness”, voices in her head known as “Furies”, and memories from her past. To properly represent psychosis, developers worked closely with neuroscientists, mental health specialists, and people suffering from the condition.
The game blends several genres, including hack and slash, puzzle solving, and psychological horror. Voice acting is an integral part of the game, while its cutscenes combine motion capture by Melina Juergens, and live action performances by other actors. (wiki)
Venom is a 2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, it is the first film in Sony’s Marvel Universe, adjunct to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Directed by Ruben Fleischer, it stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock / Venom, alongside Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Scott Haze, and Reid Scott. In Venom, journalist Brock gains superpowers after being bound to an alien symbiote whose species plans to invade Earth. The film released in the 30th Anniversary year of Venom’s debut in Marvel comics (May 1988).
The film was primarily inspired by the comic miniseries Venom: Lethal Protector (1993) and story arc “Planet of the Symbiotes” (1995). (wiki)
The filmmakers cite the films of horror directors John Carpenter and David Cronenberg as an influence on the film, as well as the horror comedy films An American Werewolf in London (1981) and Ghost Busters (1984).
At the end of the closing credits, a preview of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse(2018) appears.
The Predator is a 2018 American science fiction action comedy film directed by Shane Black and written by Black and Fred Dekker. It is the fourth installment in the Predator film series, a sequel to Predator (1987), Predator 2 (1990) and Predators (2010). Black had a supporting role in the original film, while John Davis returns as producer from the first three installments.
The film stars Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Olivia Munn, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen, and Sterling K. Brown and follows a group of PTSD-afflicted soldiers who must fight off an invading pair of Predators.
Atypical for a movie written by Shane Black, the film does not take place during Christmas but during Halloween.
timespace coordinates: city of Rapture 1968
BioShock 2 is a first-person shooter video game developed by 2K Marin and published by 2K Games. A part of the Bioshock series, it is the sequel to the 2007 video game BioShock and was released worldwide for Microsoft Windows, the PlayStation 3, and the Xbox 360 on February 9, 2010. Feral Interactive released an OS X version of the game on March 30, 2012. A remastered version of the game was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on September 13, 2016, as part of BioShock: The Collection.
Set in the fictional underwater dystopian city of Rapture, the game’s story takes place eight years after BioShock. Assuming control of Subject Delta, a hulking Big Daddy, players are tasked with fighting through “splicers”, the psychotic human population of the city, using weapons and an array of genetic modifications. The game also introduces a story-driven multiplayer mode called Fall of Rapture, which takes place during Rapture’s 1959 civil war, before the events of the first game.
(Themes) In contrast to the first BioShock‘s focus on libertarianism and Ayn Rand’s philosophies, BioShock 2 focuses on collectivist ideals. Lamb’s philosophy of altruism is based on that of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill. “Her motto is ‘Make the world your family’ meaning force your mind into becoming loyal to the world in a way usually reserved for your child, and that’s intellectually daunting,” said Thomas. In comparison to the first game’s questions of free will and destiny, Thomas said that the player character is “almost the ultimate individual” whom Lamb goads to fulfill her goals.
Professor Ryan Lizardi draws parallels between BioShock 2‘s themes of community versus the individual and the issues of McCarthyism and the hippie movement that occurred around the time period of the game’s setting. “As this sequel is an extension of the first game’s storylines and characters, there are direct contrasts between the extreme politics of Andrew Ryan’s objectivism and the extreme religion/politics of Lamb’s collectivism,” he writes. “Bioshock 2 specifically asks players to question all sides of debates when extreme stances are taken, and asks players to weigh their decisions in an alternate and complex history. ” (wiki)
steam // www.bioshock2game.com
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system/ OS: Windows 7 Service Pack 1 64-bit. Platform Update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1/ Processor: Intel E6750 Core 2 Duo 2.66 GHz / AMD Athlon X2 2.7 GHZ / Memory: 4 GB RAM / Graphics: 2GB AMD Radeon HD 7770 / 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 / DirectX: Version 11 / Storage: 25 GB available space / Sound Card: DirectX Compatible Sound Device
TimeSpace Warps 