“Night, day, it’s all okay. The choice is yours, a cosmic buffet.”
The Amazing digital Circus is a You Tube sensation that was acquired by Netflix. For to read my blog about a You Tube show picked up by Amazon click here.
When I watched the pilot for the first time I couldn’t figure out what the heck I was looking at. Episode one seemed to be so jam packed with chaos it was hard to make heads or tails out of it; especially since I didn’t pick up on the computer game Easter eggs. But then it all started to make sense. I just had to go back to my computer game days, and pick up some hints from other gamers.
It starts with a zany ring master named Caine. Caine speaks in an announcer voice, and has for a head a set of teeth with multi colored eyes inside. We are then introduced to the characters except for one, who is mysteriously absent for the opening.
The upbeat intro is then interrupted by a jester who seems to be thoroughly confused, disoriented, and frightened. She tries to remove her costume just to find that this is her avatar in this world. She is trapped here and there is no way back at the moment. Meanwhile we are introduced to the rest of the cast of “players.” The before mentioned Caine, who seems to be running the circus, and his sidekick, Bubble. There is Kinger who looks like a chess piece, Ragatha, the calm in the storm, Gangle who is in constant sorrow, Jax who is a total a**hole, Zooble who is made of interchangeable toy parts, and our jester heroine, Pomni. None of these are their real names. As gamers know, when you enter a game you give your avatar an alt name.
As I wrote, things make more sense when I learned for instance what an NPC is. It’s explained to you in the show. For instance; a character in one episode looks unfinished. Someone called him a gummy. His name in fact is GummyGoo. It sounds silly at first, but “gummy” may be a term used by developers. I couldn’t find information on this. I did find out that NPC stands for Non Playable Character. This is a character that is akin to the crowd scenes in The Matrix. They are simply to populate the scenery, or to be shot at or blown up, depending on how violent you like your video games.
In a digital circus anything is possible. Things can glitch, or unintentionally go through floors and walls. Program elements can conflict with each other. Programs freeze. Characters can distort in hideous ways. There are lots of subtle and not so subtle game developer gags here. This may be why I had no idea what was going on at first.
This pilot which by the time of this writing has 300 million + views, is produced by Glitch productions and SMG4, two independent animation studios. Glitch also produced an animated series titled Murder Drones.
If you want to see what havoc a computer can play when someone is trying to make a 3D animated movie or game, check out some game glitches on You Tube.
