Countdown to Event[0] complete with Win/Mac launch

Written by Jack Allin — September 14, 2016 at 13:01

Text adventures may not be the big draw they once were, but their legacy is still alive and well in games like Event[0], a newly-released sci-fi adventure that involves using "natural language" with an artificial intelligence to succeed.

Event[0] casts players in the role of an astronaut stranded aboard a desolate spaceship called Nautilus. The only other crewmate is an "insecure and unstable AI entity named Kaizen." Rather than being just another rogue-AI-goes-nuts story, however, this game is all about building a personal relationship with Kaizen, with whom you "interact by typing messages using antiquated computer terminals." Only by utilizing the text-based interface to navigate Kaizen's fears will you "ultimately find the way back to Earth—while unraveling the cryptic history of the ship and the 1980s society from which it emerged."

At first glance, Event[0] may look like any other free-roaming 3D adventure, and indeed you will explore the ship, gathering clues and information and solving a variety of hacking puzzles along the way. But the heart of the game is your communication with Kaizen. An emotional being, Kaizen "reacts differently depending on its mood and the situation at hand. The ship, Nautilus, is essentially the AI computer’s body, and reacts to Kaizen’s mood by making different sounds, which gives the player subtle yet valuable clues." Each player can expect a unique experience, as Kaizen is programmed to procedurally generate "over two million lines of dialog and demonstrates a variety of different personalities, and communication responses, influenced by human input."

For a game that takes place 628,300,000 km from home, Event[0] managed to sneak up on us suddenly. The benefit to that is there's no need to wait any longer, as the game is available now for Windows and Mac through most major online distributors. To learn more about the game, pop on over to its official website.