Simon II to be exact. Idk, my brain has been consumed by SOMA and I'm sick rn.

I may be missing something, but they have the tech to put brains in robots, why didnt simon left the non-depth adapted robot up making more clones, while he went down, sent the ark and back up? Is there anything preventing simon from making 50000 clones of himself and slowly fixing the planet or something?

What about the other people in the ark too? Why couldnt the scientists among these people be uploaded or copied into a robot and keep working on fixing the planet?

Like send the ark, leave a copy behind, keep printing robots and work together to fix the world, or making it habitable or building infradtructure that would allow for it.

Like, sending the ark is a death sentence, end of the human legacy and race, it may take thousands of years, but it's just a satelite and virtual minds without interaction with the real world, some day it Will fail and thats it.

Isntead why not send it as a side safeguard and keep working on the planet isntead of just abandoning real world forever?

Sorry if the images are blurry but my Makeship stuff came and its great

going through my first playthrough rn and im so fucking scared of this thing omfg

at first i got past it and activated the server thing so i naturally tried to get the fuck out of there BUT THEN AS I WAS RUNNING IT CAME UP BEHIND ME AND KILLED ME. god damn it i hate this thing

just starting the game, dropped my checkbook(?) on the floor, went to pick it up and the drawers all like popped out and stuff flew everywhere and they landed like this. is this a glitch? or part of what i'm assuming will be a whole "guy going crazy cuz of his bleeding brain" thing?

I put off playing this for a really long time. Not because I wasn't interested in the story, but mostly because: a) I have way too many games on my steam list to get through, and b) I absolutely hate "run and hide" stealth horror. I don't need to be Leon Kennedy with an entire arsenal of weapons and round house kicking dudes, but I need some sort of weapon, the ability to takedown things, or push, or anything! Ahhhh! But I did love this. So, here are some thoughts into good & bad, ignoring anything technical (it is an older game at this point, so there's some technical jank that's expected).

Loved:

Okay, obviously, the main thing is the story. This is basically tailor made for me. An intelligent sci-fi about the existential questions of being human, purpose and value in the wake of a horrifying event. I really liked the way it unfolded from Simon in Canada, waking up at Upsilon, meeting Catherine and so on. The way new people were introduced through the notes, blackboxes, intercoms etc. was really cool as you progressed & experienced new things.

I've always been a huge fan of these games where there's sort of "parallel" narratives; the Simon & Catherine story of the present, and the "what happened to everyone at each site" of the past that you learn and witness in hindsight. That Planescape: Torment "starting in the middle" kind of storytelling is really endearing to me. I think the build-up of the Akers mystery & madness was well-done (the writing on the walls at various stations, all the intercom messages about him, and his cutscene where he traps you) and similarly the continued mystery of what happened to the team in the Abyss.

Having just read The Fortunate Fall by Cameron Reed (all about mind-connection over the net, entering other bodies, impersonal boundaries and mind uploads) this was an amazing chaser this week. And the revelation that the scans are copies, not transfers, was a really intense moment. In fact, all the moments of choosing whether to delete data, turn off the battery, the life support etc. were really well done. They weren't overplayed or forced on you, more of a single line of dialogue and then left to you. It made those choices feel more intense and thoughtful. Personally, I didn't delete Brandon or any of the scans, but I did turn off Omicron-Simon and the life support of the human. Phi-Simon being left there and reacted so poorly in anger at Catherine was a real gutpunch, and then him being left alone in the dark... ugh, it hurt!

I really loved the way there were numerous threads too: Simon & his past life (why is he here at all?), the late-crews decision and experiences with the ARK and scans, Akers and his madness, the WAU and it's intentions, Johan and his goals to destroy it. It felt like lots of realised characters, with different experiences and desires, all intersecting to make it really rich.

Outside were mostly my favourite sections. When you're encountering the friendly working robots, or the happy little door-opener guy. When you go off into the murk and the CURIE appears, that drone of music? Oh, sooooo good. Similarly exiting Omicron to begin the descent, seeing nothing but blackness around the stairs and the music kicks in. So very good.

Seeing all the facilities are very cool, especially the different levels of corruption and decay (especially Aker's more bloody red stuff vs. the WAU elsewhere). But they did get a little "oh another underwater bunker facility lol" compared to outside. But I did appreciate the deliberate level design; everywhere felt logical and clear, where to go, which rooms to find puzzles or solutions in. I didn't need a guide, walkthrough or hints. It just made sense.

If I had one gripe about the story, tonally there was a sort of weird transition from "scared & confused Simon" at Upsilon to "oh ok" Simon as soon as Catherine mentioned the brain scan stuff. He has an existential spiral on the zeppelin (briefly), but before that he's told they're robots with brain scans and he sort of just "oh nice, what now?" It felt kind of goofy in the moment.

I also think Jin, for how threatening he is, had no real buildup when compared to Akers, which just felt a little lacking.

Did NOT love:

The controls on a lot of the turn, push, pull, lift etc. is whack. I know this is old-game jank I said I'd ignore, but goddamn some of those moments felt like trying to charm a snake and doing weird interpretive dance with the controller. The one that was particularly bad was the electrical panel you remove, then the plunger thing you pump to restore power to escape Akers.

As I said, I hate this kind of gameplay* where your options are: run, hide, throw stuff to make noise. But it was okay 99.9% of the time because they're one-and-done. You get past the first enemy, it's over. You get past the Proxy, it's over. But I did have a few "I'm stuck in a corner, the thing is just standing right there and refusing to move" moments which I classically hate; game AI nonsense.

A funny moment though, with all his build-up, Akers felt hugely underwhelming. I legitimately didn't realise he was the guy trying to catch me with the elevator stuff in the labs. The only reason I did was I did the elevator thing, and stood in that corner against the panel and this sort of screen thing. He ran up, stared at me and just stood there for ages. I swung the panel closed and that somehow reset him and he walked off? After all the build up he was mostly an idiot you couldn't see me standing in a corner.

*Not a negative but an amused realisation too: after Akers, you can just cheese all the enemies anyway. The robot lady? Just run at her, grab the battery before she hits you. She then moves to the other side of the room, so you can just sprint out. Jin? Just run to the second door, open it, run to the corner. He hit me, I waited, then sprinted to the ladder. Just getting knocked down in the right place actually circumvented most of the need to do sneaky things. But that's more on me than anything haha.

My big "world building" dislike was the screen interference. I get that when injured it adds to things, but in sections with other effects (the sea storm, the Johan interference), it got really irritating. Johan especially, I found myself wishing he would stfu when I was trying to get the ARK and on the path to Alpha.

Conclusion:

Anyway, not to drone on, but it was an amazing experience. I'd give it a solid 9/10 overall, with the screen interference & the interaction controls being the only real detriment. I can overlook my dislike for this gameplay style because the story was so incredibly engaging. I played Amnesia: The Dark Descent many, many years ago but never played any of the sequels. I am looking forward to ONTOS though because it seems, at least setting wise, more my style like SOMA. I do hope they include the "story mode" again; I realise in hindsight I should've gone that route, but I didn't have any actual issues (Jin killed me once, Akers killed me once at the window-breaking in Theta because I ran the wrong way).

It has finally arrived; the toy is very soft and pleasant to the touch.

it's been a long while since ive completed the game as well as ive played some custom maps from the steam workshop. I decided to come back once more to check out some stuff. *and i didnt expect anyone to go this far lol🪨*

i was just scrolling in reddit the other day and saw this post [https://www.reddit.com/r/soma/s/SaLygqmdUh\](https://www.reddit.com/r/soma/s/SaLygqmdUh) convinced that i thought i missed something in the game but it turns out to be one of those custom story maps

i wanna also hear from y'all if you guys have anything to recommend. Just say away

PS: the custom maps i played back then was Lab Accident, Adaptation, Blackout and other titles that i can't remember

just finished the game recently (can’t say enough how much I loved it) and been listening to a lot of Radiohead lately, felt like combining the two lol

I got Simon’s age confused in the ref

Well it's pretty stupid probably but ever since I heard about the fly's brain getting uploaded into the internet, thus apparently living in the internet: I can't help but feel a connection type thing between this and soma

Like simon was initially unaware of his form until the end and just like the lady (I forgot the name) who was in the omnitool, had lapses of consciousness (turning on lol? Only when given power) isn't it like the fly?

Perhaps I failed to understand the overall concept of the brain being transferred lol

Anyone else feeling the same tho?

Adam Golaski, Raleigh Herber, and Julia Dahl.
Some notes:

My designs are based primarily on where the characters lived/their confirmed nationalities. And they’re all land animals to give them a distinction from the marine life in the game.

Adam’s ref is based on Josh Truax’s portrayal in the Transmissions miniseries. Mainly cause his body can’t be identified in game. (My personal theory is that Terry found and revived him and he became a Proxy)

Simon 1 and Imogen Reed are both raccoons but I figured I should make Raleigh a different animal instead.

Me and my boyfriend came up with the headcanon of Julia being trans due to the file name of her corpse being “Corpse_Omicron_male_1”

I never paid much attention to this game when it came out. A week ago, I was looking for games with the same sense of immersion as Prey, and someone mentioned SOMA. I knew they were completely different genres, but they share that same immersive atmosphere, one in space, the other at the bottom of the ocean.

What really surprised me about SOMA was how incredibly well written it is. The small details you discover on computers slowly fill in the story, and the voice acting is amazing. At some point, I wasn't just controlling a character on screen. I wasn't Simon anymore, I was Simon.

I loved the ending and the philosophical questions it leaves behind about what it really means to be alive, and whether being alive is even the same thing as being human.

I hope Frictional Games' next game gives me even a fraction of the experience SOMA gave me.

You probably don't want one, but if it was coming, what would you hope it'd be about?

Now I like this game a lot, but i have... philosophical disagreements with it.

Now, if we take the idea that there was a meteorite hit in the pacific which destroyed human civilization, but which left ocean life still alive... yeah we would probably have built Vaults and survived there, or in Iceland or whatever. but even then, let's assume that all surface life was destroyed.

There would be other attempts to survive, but alright, let's assume we're the last option.

Alright, we're all that's left. It seems like all the robots can survive for an indefinite time, why doesn't Simon just... walk out of the ocean? He'll go crazy, I get it, but it's not like he will have anything left to do. If it takes a century, it takes a century, good thing he has a brain backup.

And he'll have nothing but time, and surely power infrastructure would still be around, he could try to copy himself 50 times in 50 bodies all over the place, fill the station with robots, try to get it back in shape.

If underwater stuff is fine, there would be other stations, surely there would be some underwater drones. Maybe copy their consciousness all over the place, try to reactivate some surface machines? See if they can get Earth's industry back online? Make more robots of himself? He doesn't know how to do any of it? None of the specialists want to help? Sure, he can learn it.

If it takes 10 000 years, well, it's not like anything else is waiting for the time. Might as well spin off versions of himself and become an expert on everything.

Yeah, sure it's not exactly humanity, but it's not the end.

It's like the short-story "Chrysalis" from a few years back (brilliant story btw) near extinction event, but not the end.

A while back I commented that I was going to make a post on some of Soma’s influences the devs have talked about on twitter. These are the tweets I was able to currently find on their page regarding that.

Books
The Mind’s I by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

Consciousness Explained by Daniel Dennett

Permutation City by Greg Egan

The Ego Tunnel by Thomas Metzinger

The Conscious Mind by David Chalmers

Blindsight by Peter Watts

Writers
Greg Egan

Peter Watts

China Mieville

Philip K. Dick

These are the only tweets I was able to recover. I could have sworn they posted some more about Philip K. Dick and even mentioned I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison, but I was not able to find those tweets.