In Lost, you play as a cat. For many people, this is a mic worth buying right off the bat, and Blue Twelve Studio, the former Ubisoft employee responsible for the game, knows this well — right from the start, Lost shamelessly exploiting shameful antics about Felis catus.
Where do I start? You press O to meow. You use the L and R hammers to rake trees (and furniture). You purr from nooks and crannies and lie down in nooks and crannies. Interludes shows you dancing on the keyboard, playing the piano and playing terror board games. And while LostMy cat is just a tabby, not long or mutated or struggling to breathe like the more famous cats on the net, it will, like Untitled Goose Gameof the geese that preceded it, still providing rich fodder for the meme. Thanks for the cooperation with Travel catthere’s even a Lost-themed belt and backpack collection capable of carrying “a 25 lbs cat in a sturdy, well-ventilated chassis.”
There’s been a lot of talk about the cat, and to be fair, it’s the star of the show here. But I will focus on something else: namely, the seemingly limitless influence of The Walled City of Kowloon.
Lost set after the apocalypse. Humans are gone, but cats are as tough as cockroaches. (Jonathan Franzen crying.) The game unfolds on four fur balls that are sheltering from the rain in a concrete building covered with vines. On your daily footsteps through the ruins of industrial civilization, you slide down a crevice, into the dark, landing hard in a cast sewer. After looking around the lab, you spot a drone named B12. This drone will act as your Navigator to the Dumb Link, living in a backpack that looks a lot like the one I just mentioned, allowing you to — er, the cat — perform the required tasks. opposite thumbs — like using a flashlight and a key — and a concept of language — like translating Robot into American English.
The scene is strangely familiar. In 1993, William Gibson visited Singapore and startled by the astigmatism and permanence he found there. As he struggles on his flight home, he reveals a vain hope: maybe a second glimpse of an ongoing obsession “before the future comes to break it”. This obsession is the Walled City of Kowloon. He wrote: “Hive of dream. Those windows that do not match, are not calculated. How they seem to absorb all the frenzy of Kai Tak airport, sucking up energy like a black hole. I’m ready for something like that.”
The Walled City, as it still stands, looms at the edge of Kowloon City, then part of British Hong Kong. Controlled by China as an enclave, it has become a political ball: Hong Kong’s British governors hate it; China will not destroy it. It is run by five triad gangs, James Crawford explains in an article for Atlas Obscura. “No taxes, no regulation of businesses, no health systems or plans, no police presence. People can go to Kowloon, and officially, disappear. ” Substantial productivity — residents earn enough fishballs to feed Hong Kong’s wealthy elite — is mixed with gambling, prostitution and drugs. Even the rats writhed with heroin addiction, Crawford writes. .
