All aboard the centipede express

Squash the beetles for maximum damage.

Kaf’s dad… or is it? *hmm*

A long time ago, in an octopus city far away, a figurative ghost in a bottle had manifested in the form of pure dark energy. Within this bottle were trapped the dreams of humankind and the teachings of the otherkin of yore. The ghost had a lot to teach us, but he thought he’d blow our minds. There was only one way to reach the people: the creation of a full-fledged Octopus City Simulation Software (OCSS) and the utilization of cloud-based social media platforms to monetize micro-transactions. The creation of OCSS is a complex process. The balancing act involved in creating an authentic and engaging simulation is easy to underestimate. Initially, the ghost tried to do everything on its own. This culminated in a short video that has since grown into a global social media sensation.

The ghost always knew that more people were needed to make the simulation a reality. Ghosts are wonderful creatures capable of many miraculous feats. However, the ability of a household ghost is limited to what the original person was able to achieve before attaining ghosthood. In this case, with the owner being a good-for-nothing homeless man who died in a tragic dumpster diving incident, the ghost wasn’t a particularly good artist or composer. To make things worse, the ghost couldn’t devote all of its free time to the simulation — running a haunted mansion built on ancient burial grounds is a full time job after all. It’s true that ghosts have all the time in the world, but the message had to reach people as soon as possible to prevent a prophesied apocalypse.

This lead to the formation of the Ghost in a Bottle Mega-Conglomerate to oversee the production of Octopus City Blues, the authentic Octopus City simulation. The HR department at Ghost in a Bottle Zaibatsu (GiaB) was able to secure the talent of the award-winning Aaron Eason to compose the orchestral soundtrack accompanying the simulation. The art was handled by the famed Frankie Coulombe who did a wonderful job in bringing Octopus City to life. Additionally, concept art was outsourced to a sleazy con artist who claimed that he loves the project so much he’d do the art for free. Things were going smoothly and everyone was ready to pass their memes on to the next generation. Art produced in this golden era can be found here and here.

Alas, things don’t always go so well. Frankie was also involved in a not-for-trend dwarf space ziggurat simulation software for our ancient rivals and the success of their revenue model meant that Frankie would be working on that project full time. Being a true octo-maniac and a wonderful friend, he still offered to continue working on our anticipated simulation, but it would have delayed the project considerably. Thankfully, there was always a plan B. The ghost might have been a terrible person in his life, but one of the perks of being a ghost trapped in a bottle of ancient wisdom is having a lot of time to plan for such contingencies. Development of the simulation would continue and the ghost would be working on the art again (examples here and here). Meanwhile, our HR department worked day and night to recruit a talented Senior Tentacle Artist II to fill the vacant position. Ocean’s Dream joined us for a while and worked on this screenshot. He subsequently got a full time job and wanted to focus on his own projects.

With no one else to turn to, our gracious CEO, the Ghost in a Bottle personified, will be doing everything on its own. This means that you’ll have to wait longer to experience our magnum opus, and that the simulation visual quality would not be as authentic as advertised. Nevertheless, we remain committed to this endeavor and are doing our very best to redefine the Octopus City simulation genre.

And so, the ghost was finally able to achieve the impossible dream of simulating a real Octopus City and saving the world from the Octopus City deprivation epidemic predicted by the ancient Mayans. Please visit the site for future progress updates and an inside look into the depth of your own soul.

Kaf takes good care of his friends - Version 2

Kaf takes good care of his friends.

That’s an interesting question! The simulation is based on documents and artifacts discovered in the ruins of the Samarduk Octopus City. With that said, we have no way of knowing how the city or the people who lived in it looked like. Our creative input is required to fill in the gaps and present the city properly. As with any creative process, we draw influences from multiple sources.

Read More

In this episodic series we go back in time to remember the earlier attempts to adapt the story of Octopus City into “video games”. Obviously, Ghost in a Bottle Megacorp’s version is a proper Octopus City simulation and not a mere “video game”, and this series is not meant to compare our simulation with inferior toys. Nonetheless, it is still insightful to examine these early attempts and to see where they fell short of expectations.

Did you know that a long long time ago, the empire of Japan was the major exporter of ‘video games’? The empire had complete dominance over the industry, and while puny developers made Mario clones in garages and basements in the west, the video game industry was booming in the land of the rising sun. For historic reasons, the average Japanese sarariman サラリーマン at the time was fond of two things: tentacles and RPGs. The empire went as far as declaring the release date of some popular RPGs a public holiday.

It was in these exciting times when an ambitious young man known as Yoichi Wada 和田 洋一 decided that one day he will be the most corrupt CEO of all time. Yoichi was no ordinary sarariman, he spent many years studying the occult arts of corporate finance and equity valuation, and then proceeded to perform prohibited rituals in which he sold his own soul to become a president at the young age of 40 years. Yoichi-kun soon realized the potential of bringing together the two things the Japanese loved the most. He wanted to make an RPG about tentacles. It was quite a bold move for the time. RPGs were about crystals and dragons, wizards and knights. Of course, it didn’t matter to Yoichi. He didn’t even care about RPGs or games, all he cared about was embracing his capitalist ideals. He hired Nasir Gebelli, the world’s oldest programmer, to work on this ambitious project. This is how Legend of Octopus City Crystal Saga : Official Game of the Movie (オックタプスシッティ伝説 クリスタルサガ ) came to exist, and the rest… is history.

Our next game is a popular arcade beat ‘em up by Technos Japan Corp. Octopus City Hot-Blooded Story (released in the US as Kaf ‘n the Boys: Tentacle Challenge) was largely based on Technos previous games in the same genre, but greatly improved on these games by incorporating the popular Octopus City mythos and characters. In Octopus City Hoot-Blooded Story you assume the role of Kaf Kafkaryan (or his evil twin brother, sir Gaff Gafgarion) on his daring quest to save Daisy, his favorite tentacle, from the evil Shrimps gang. Kaf (and Gaff) can learn a large variety of fighting moves by defeating unique bosses across the game’s 6 levels. The game inspired many spinoffs and lead the the development of several sequels and gritty HD reboots. While the game is not historically accurate — there is no evidence that Kaf had a twin brother, it was well received in arcades all over the world and it introduced many kids to the wonderful world of Octopus City and the dangers of Octoblood Addiction.

Moms are tough. (special thanks to Ocean’s Dream)

Press Release

Ghost in a Bottle GmbH, the leading provider of Octopus City-themed simulations, is excited to announce the arrival of the newest version of Octopus Engine, the next generation development platform. To highlight the bleeding edge features of the engine, Ghost in a Bottle GmbH has released a video (shown above) showcasing real-time rendering of the intro prototype released earlier. In addition to presenting the latest engine improvements, the video contains samples from the official Octopus City orchestral soundtrack composed by the award-winning Aaron Eason.

While the old prototype used a top-notch middleware engine, our simulations are very ambitious and require advanced capabilities to faithfully present Octopus City and to render highly detailed sunset cut-scenes. The new video uses our own engine and introduces a variety of the proprietary technologies that we have developed over the last few months. This includes improved performance, new scripting capabilities, enhanced scrolling layers, and S.H.A.K.E., our advanced screen shaking system.

“We have been working on the new engine for many years and are happy to finally be able to unveil it to the world. We believe that the unique features of our multi-platform engine will change the whole industry.” said Ghost of a Bottle CEO “We live in a time where humans are capable of unparalleled achievement. It is our social responsibility as a respected corporation to provide our customers with the fastest evolving modern Octopus City simulations available.”

About Ghost in a Bottle

During this period of rapid innovation and evolution within the global industry, people around the world look to Ghost in a Bottle as a successful example of a company that managed to grow and dynamically evolve to meet a market undergoing drastic transformations. Most of the time, we were at the forefront of this revolution because unlike many other companies, our ultimate interest has always been to hoard as much gold as possible in our massive underground vaults.

For more information, visit: http://ghostinabottle.com.