The Ultimate SOMA Discussion Thread

[Paddy™]

I looked up who Philip K. Dick is after looking at the quote on the SOMA page.
("Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”)

He's a writer who wrote some popular short stories and novels, and some of his stuff became movies like Blade Runner and Total Recall.

He also seems to mention a lot about reality bending in his works, as he also used to experience hallucinations and other phenomenon which altered his perception of things, like struggling what is real and what is not.

Here he is on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick

Hi DavidS.

PKD is the boss when it comes to this stuff

A few similar authors of sci-fi, horror and weird fiction have been mentioned at various times as having had an influence on SOMA's story, or at least on how the story is told. China Miéville, Greg Egan, H.P. Lovecraft (of course), Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein have all been cited in interviews with Thomas (like here and here).

I think it's safe to say SOMA will be mindfuck if nothing else.

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EDIT: here's a new interview with Samuel Justice, the lead sound designer for SOMA:

http://theaudiospotlight.com/samuel-justice-interview/

He mentions that SOMA's indoor and underwater environments each have their own unique soundscape, rather than just one soundscape with global processes or DSPs applied to make it sound more underwatery.