Since 2015, Will Wright — the legendary video game designer behind 'The Sims' and 'SimCity' — has been consumed by a new obsession: how our ever-shifting library of memories forges the self. In his mind, each personal memory from your life is like a snow globe, a world inside a world. But that world could be connected to countless others in conscious and unconscious ways. He wanted to create a game in which a player could tinker with that unending maze of inner microverses, logging their significant memories for an AI to analyze and then mapping their own psyche the way they had mapped digital metropolises in ‘SimCity.’ It would be called ‘Proxi: Yesterday's You Tomorrow.’ The concept was part computerized LEGO set, part RPG, part Enneagram, part transhumanist mind-uploading fantasy, part reboot of Borges and Proust for the LLM age. It would be, in some ways, Wright's most personal video game yet. Fast forward to October 2024 — after spending ten years, a million dollars of Wright's own money, and a few million from investors; after they’d already started building out the game’s universe — the game was (and still is) nowhere close to being finished. Eric Boodman spent time with Wright and his ‘Proxi’ crew to find out when — or if — one of the most celebrated video-game designers ever's next (and even wilder) act will come to life: nymag.visitlink.me/ElSdEG