The Village - The True Untold Story Of How Ten Years Were Spent Trying To Bring A Prisoner-Based PC Game To Reality (I'm sure you know it never happened but you don't know just how close we came)

by Wm. Maher


First a little background; my life was utterly changed by stumbling onto The Prisoner on CBS in the summer of 1968. Back then I was a perennial misfit in suburban Detroit and I didn't just feel rejected and misunderstood like many a high school-aged kid, I was rejected and misunderstood, trapped in a life where parents and teachers were trying hard to condition me to fall in line and accept life in the pleasant Michigan village I'd grown up in. Then one Sunday night during summer rerun season something starling took over my screen. Here was a TV show that you couldn’t follow while you were hanging up the laundry or doing your homework, The Prisoner demanded that you pay complete attention to what was going on. It had Patick McGoohan in it, who I liked from Secret Agent (U.S. title for Danger Man), and here he was, knocked out and seemingly trapped in some kind of eerie British resort town. Slowly I began to learn the rules of this strange world, this was a show that took place in a single, seemingly pleasant location, but before the first episode had ended I felt anxious for the hero, this Number 6 who had some kind of “information” . It was made quite clear that he was not going to surrender it to who-knows-who and the warden of this peculiar prison would stop at nothing to pry it out of him “by hook or by crook”. Every aspect of him was being tested, probed, pummeled, and put under threat unless he talked.

As the episodes came I found No. 6 balancing on the increasingly narrow edge of crushing defeat, madness, or both. Unlike any other, here was a show for smart people, stubborn people, rebellious people. In Detroit in the '60s a high school student was expected to be preparing themselves for a white collar spot somewhere in the auto industry. Your father likely had something to do with cars and your father's father could have had something to do with cars as well. I was already a pretty good comic book artist at the time and there was no faster way to become the ugly duckling of our family than to drop out of high school to follow my dream. Embattled, I needed something on the positive side to hang onto and The Prisoner and its No. 6 were right there when I needed them. It felt good to see myself not as inferior or defective but simply "unmutual", a numbered badge one could wear with pride. I was so moved by the show that, so I'd never forget "to resist, to stand fast", friends can tell you that for years I wore the same canvas deck shoes Villagers were issued to help me remember the message of that show. I was reminded I was standing in my own personal Village every time I looked down at my feet. No. 6 had taught me I had a right to be myself, to be individual, even when my own misunderstanding parents gradually became No. 2s.

As a result of the courage and confidence the show instilled in me, I survived, became an early 3D CGI artist and eventually became a professional videogame designer; naturally creating a PC game based on The Prisoner was my dream project. When I became the Creative Director of a game company in California in 1993, I tracked down Joan McGoohan where she worked and, believing me not to be a total maniac, she set up a phone appointment for me to talk to Patrick during the hours he'd take business calls. As nervously as you would imagine I rang the number, the receiver clicked, my heart stopped, and Patrick announced himself in exactly the same tone of voice you'd expect if to hear if Number 6 was answering a call from No. 2 - "Yes, what do you want?" To this day I think that the only reason he took my call was because my surname is the same as his long time stunt double Frank Maher and maybe he thought I might be related in some way. After a shaky explanation it turned out he was instantly receptive to the idea of a game which surprised the hell out of me since I was, after all, proposing a project using computers and we all know his reservations about those. But he was totally agreeable, explaining that he knew about videogames and he wanted something his grandchildren would play.

After a few phone conferences Patrick became positively friendly, jokes lobbing back and forth about the Catholic Church (the institution not the religion), politics, show business and especially the future, a topic that was regularly on his mind. I discovered that his brittle exterior was armor he wore to ward off miscellaneous idiots, idiots in the industry, and the prison of The Prisoner itself (he was acting and writing other things after all). I gradually found him to be very sensitive and thoughtful, with an artistic sensibility (he was impressed, maybe even a bit jealous when he found out that I can draw (?) and he had a special soft spot for kids - when I made an off-hand comment about my boy he told me to put my 11 yr. old son on the phone for a chat that he remembers to this day.

Anyway, to move any further it was necessary to get the then rights holders, ITC, on board and it would be critical to get the rights to use Ron Grainer’s incredible score, as iconic as the Village itself. The reason anybody was willing to consider the project at all was because there was, at the time, talk of a feature film adaptation of the show and a movie = global marketing, press, renewed interest from the public, more sales of DVD's, etc. Why not throw a videogame on the pile? Rose at ITC told me to send a proposal to their London office (ahem) signed by Patrick, of course. While we waited for the turning of gears, Patrick and I talked about ways the gameplay would be different from the show - you (the player) would be issued a number and unique dossier (background and skills) and would have to earn No. 6's trust. If successful (no guarantee) you would use a variety of techniques to steal equipment, expose traitors and recruit compatriots, and you needed to map the underground layout of the Village (which could change, sections appearing and disappearing from game to game), all with the goal of supporting No. 6 in a full-scale siege and conquest of The Village resulting in what we called the Reversal Of Fortunes - prisoners in charge, warders being pressed for answers that would clear up many of the show’s mysteries. All you had to do was remain undetected and work at your tasks as quickly as possible while avoiding having your brain "mutualized" or, worse still, being turned into a puppet of No. 2’s.

We eventually realized that (a) we wanted to build an accurate 3D model of The Village to play in (a research trip to Wales? Oh dear!) and (b) it should be possible to discover who No. 1 is. There would be 6 possible answers a player could uncover (not the monkey) but only one was the true identity - players would have to argue out the correct answer (which really existed) by exchanging evidence on their own. We were well into regular discussions (Patrick talking about getting some actor friends of his in to voice various No. 2's) when the proposed Prisoner feature "went into turnaround" (was mothballed) and the support from my bosses and ITC fell apart. Patrick and I shrugged and parted company, both resigned to the way the entertainment industry works, or fails to.

In the early 2000's another Prisoner-based movie was threatened which later turned out to be the 3-part TV mini-series which is best - and easily - forgotten. Patrick was to be credited as an Executive Producer but have no involvement and his creative input was politely ignored. I think he dreaded the "reimagining" of his masterwork but was resigned to being a pawn on the chessboard of greater powers. At this point I was the Director of a Game Design program at a college in Canada with plenty of talented students on hand, certainly good enough and eager enough to create a playable prototype, so, with the renewed talk of a feature film out there, I put things back in motion.

The programming students had some cool ideas regarding what they could do, like installing a screensaver, the Village penny farthing from the series end titles, which, at random times, would change to a display of names from the player's own email contacts, a quick, accidental shot of the Control room, a hazy view of the ceiling of some kind of lab setting, one of several SpeedLearn sessions, or a hack to turn on your webcam and scan the interior of your room. Meanwhile Patrick and I had begun to work out the big reveal - why No. 6 resigned. I think Patrick wanted to revisit the answer himself and, using detailed clues in the first episode, Arrival, to make it absolutely rock solid, we came to a surprising scenario Patrick approved. I don't know if he ever would have allowed putting it in the game or not and I know you'd never forgive me for telling you what it is but I will say there is an answer which lies somewhere among Cobb and his family, the Undertakers, Germany, and Drake/No. 6 evading the security within his own agency (MI 5?) to break in to the room with the endless filing cabinets you see in the titles. Just barely surviving the security system, he finds shocking truths which turn the proceeding story on its head. What I can assure you it is that Drake finds his position intolerable, his sense of honor has been challenged, and his unshakable duty to protect other people has been turned against him. And, significantly, it turns out that his resignation is a ruse, albeit one that backfires. Then the movie project was put off again, meaning that it would be several years until it finally became the mini-series we all eagerly awaited and which I watched about a half an hour of.

And there it lay. It kills me that we lost Patrick before we had a chance to set The Village game loose on an unsuspecting public. We took some trouble to make it compelling to people who had never heard of The Prisoner but might know offspring like The Matrix, The Truman Show, or Brazil. On the other hand I'm glad he didn't live to see the world becoming what he thought it might - a place where people twirl their multicolored umbrellas, placated and pacified, and cheerfully volunteer their personal profile and current location for anyone to see. What would he feel when it was revealed that the US government is logging every one of 300 million people's phone calls and internet traffic, city police are covering the world with CCTV cameras, people are being killed by flying robots, and we now live in an age where anybody with "information" can get on Google Maps and see a satellite view of the patio furniture in Patrick's back yard. Despite his early warning the surveillance genie is out its digital bottle - we are all numbered and, to be fair, in some ways that's progress, it's good. My doctor speaks my medical evaluations into a computer database that tracks my condition and accurately exchanges information with my pharmacy, specialists, and labs. But as we know, that same technology can be hacked, used to steal my health card number, force ads for new medications under my eyelids or use my Social Insurance number to create a false profile, digitally killing me and rerouting my life insurance payments. The rewards of progress shouldn't lull us into surrendering our virtual selves, we shouldn't have to allow our behavior to be tracked, traded, and analyzed just to download a cake recipe*. We have a right to be unique and to protect our virtual selves from turning against us, throwing the doors open and allowing full-on invasion of our privacy.

Today we are surrounded by a thousand Trojan Horses offering us free apps and games paid for by the data they capture about whom and where we are. For Patrick, personhood is sacred and integrity is about understanding and honoring the responsibility of being in possession of a soul, your own unique, indelible soul. To him it was obvious that you, your being, your thoughts, belong only to yourself and that you have to exercise your right to be separate, unabsorbed, solitary. He was a thoughtful man and I can only imagine what he'd think about living in a world where he could not expect to be able to take a solitary walk down a wooded lane without a vast overhead network watching his every move. That's OUR Village friends, it's here and it's now. Somewhere the words I'm writing and the location they've come from are being logged just as your address and the webpage you’re reading now has been noted as well. How long will it be before your thoughts while reading this article will be a matter of public record? Look at modern brain research and you’ll see it's not as far-fetched as it sounds.

As he gradually declined, Patrick grew tired of what appeared to be a losing battle against infiltration of modern man (his grandchildren?) but he never, ever wavered from his conviction that we are singular, unique, and in order to remain our own property, we must have a perimeter, we must insist on a wall, a keep no one can violate. In this regard he looked to the next generation with some hope. That's why he wanted to speak through a game we would play, to give us all a taste of The Village and how to fight it. He expected us to have sense enough to realize what we’re doing to ourselves and what the ultimate cost would be. He cared about and wanted to protect other people – and though I wouldn't presume to speak for him I'd bet money that he'd be happy to shake the hand of Edward Snowden.

The Patrick I was lucky enough to have dealings with was a better man from better times who never allowed himself to be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. To those who don’t care that they are being scrutinized, who say they “have nothing to hide” surrender has already happened. What we were hoping to create was an experience, an exciting challenge, which would make the consequences of such apathy perfectly clear. Believe it or not, for a time Patrick McGoohan was, among his many talents, a game designer and the adventure in mind was “The Village” - A Most Dangerous Game.

Be Seeing You,
Wm. Maher

http://about.me/bil.maher

*Ghostery is a free extension for Chrome and Firefox which reveals and can block companies that track your internet browsing. “Ghostery sees the "invisible" web, detecting trackers, web bugs, pixels, and beacons placed on web pages by Facebook, Google Analytics, and over 1,000 other ad networks, behavioral data providers, and web publishers - all companies interested in (spying on) your activity.”
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ghostery/

P.S. I checked www.theunmutual.co.uk/ and, not surprisingly, this site is clean and uncontaminated by spyware or trackers. Good show!

If there are any interested parties who would like to participate in developing a prototype of The Village, send an email to: ip.randd@gmail.com with your expertise in the subject line, ex. “Webmaster”, “Researcher”, “Sketchup Modeler”, etc. Feel free to elaborate in the email. Multi-hyphenates please send separate emails for each of the hats you wear, ex. If you do graphic design = one email, also a musician = second email, and a writer = 3 messages, and so one so we can add up resources by the number of replies. There’s lots to do but it would be fun. Wm. .

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