Simulacrum: Project Overview

I wanted to do a quick overview of the personal game that I've been working on of late. It's kind of been an experimental thing, as I didn't have much background in coding or animation before this last summer, but in any case, it's moving along little by little.

Simulacrum is a 2D side-scrolling "interdimensional" puzzle platformer based loosely around ideas presented in The Matrix. I say interdimensional because in order to make your way through the various levels, you have to travel to different layers of reality, all one on top of the other but largely inaccessible and often entirely imperceptible to those unawakened to their presence. The main character, pulled from his everyday reality by a splinter cell called Orion, teams up with a robot sidekick to take down the Ascendency, who controls pretty much every aspect of life for the vast majority of the human population.

The Ascendency uses Enforcers to regulate
life and track down Orion agents.

Within the world, there are four layers of reality:

The Root - the secure mainframe from which the Ascendency operates. It deploys soldiers called Enforcers and regulates life inside the second layer, or Hub.
The Hub - Everyday existence. People have jobs, live in houses, go to movies on the weekends. It's just everyday life, as prescribed by the Ascendency and its cronies.
Elysium - A pristine wilderness where the awakened go to escape the humdrum of everyday life. Here abide artists, philosophers, dreamers, etc. While the Ascendency is aware of Elysium's presence, they tend not to concern themselves much with this layer, as there are wild creatures and rift abnormalities that can prove dangerous to other layers.
Proteus - The ghost layer/server run by Orion. The Ascendency knows of its existence but has no access as of yet. Its location and access points are guarded fiercely.

A Thing Called Summer

So this crazy thing happened to me recently. I think they call it summer, but it lasted too long for it to have been only 4 months, and it passed too quickly for it to have been roughly a third of a year. In any case, summer is drawing to its end, and while I've been up to a lot of fun things this summer, I haven't been writing or really documenting any of it, so for those few benevolent souls who are interested in the goings-on of my life, I've prepared a brief (if you know me at all, you know that to be a baldfaced lie) recap of whatever comes to mind of the past four months.

So, this happened. Also, just as a side note, I'm almost
perpetually pale, so if you think the sickly pallor is the
unfortunate result of cool lighting or something like that,
rest assured that it is actually just my pasty self in all its wonder.

So there was graduation. That was a thing. Then I kind of stared the wall for like five days, and then I filled out job applications for a month or so while learning Javascript and reading in my free time. So many good books this summer: Faust, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Hafiz, Oscar Wao, No Country for Old Men, as well as an epic fantasy trilogy of which I've grown less fond with each subsequent novel. Alas, I digress. As you might have noticed, I said that I filled out job applications for a month. I should have said "for two months," but I wanted to break it up into separate segments so it would sound less pitiful. I still had (and have) my job at the missionary training center, and while it pays very well, it only gives me like 5 hours a week. So, I filled my days moving infinity friends to new homes/apartments, devising herb bread recipes with my roommate Ben (who is apparently a connoisseur of artisan breads and all things African), and working on my First. Video. Game. Ever.