The world is full of Homo sapiens, human beings, the last species of hominid. We have approximately 20,000 genes and a vast diversity in our gene pool. It is exciting and terrifying what our species has achieved. Exciting because we can create amazing things. Terrifying because our individual voices can be lost in the noise. This website belongs to just one hominid, a place for me to share my creativity and voice. And that’s enough.
All in Genetics
I had a chance to sit down with Patrice Désilets, the creator of Assassin’s Creed, to discuss his recently released game Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey for Escapist Magazine. We talked about their goals when creating the game and how they tried to infuse real scientific facts about human evolution and ancestry into the game. Patrice was a fun interviewee and was very candid about their design goals with the game as well as where they want to go in the future with Ancestors.
In my recent piece published in Escapist Magazine, I discussed how the monster and environment designs of Monster Hunter World feel so deeply immersive because the designs utilize elements of adaptive evolution, the real scientific concept that creates actual animals and plants in the real world.
The very real concepts of “mutation” and genetic conditions are often used in science fiction. A recent video game demonstrates an all-too-common and lazy way of using them to create “monsters” without any scientific context or consideration for actual patients with those conditions.
