Event[0]—Communication Is Crucial in This Cerebral Game About a Stranded Astronaut and a Skeptical AI Seeking Earth

Survival stories translated into movies, books and video games have taught us there are many ways to endure in a life altering/stagnating situation - Shut up and focus, proceed plan with the lowest possible death count/damage, use props to your advantage and elbow attacks, brainstorm & team-work, being selfish (works in certain B-grade movies) and a major leap of faith. There are more story arcs but this pretty much covers popular tactics.

We've a plethora of survival sims in the market about 'Beings' trapped in an enclosure seeking to escape and find out the back story of how it happened or what comes next. So, what makes Event[0] exciting? It turns out the game has already gathered popular accolades from gaming fans and critics even before the release. Their new website is brimmed with .png showcases and awards.

Back to what makes this interactive piece of science fiction interesting? The game is an amalgam of texting adventure games & survival simulators with the main feature being the ability to chat with another NPC. The NPC is in the form of a sentient intelligence that is maligned by objections and misinformation. This alone thrills me. This is only the third time I feel enthralled by a game release. The first natural reaction was for Mass Effect. The second experience was with the game trailer of 'Remember Me' which turned out to be 'okay-ish' during gameplay. People say there're not many female-centric video games. But you make one and you mess it up. That game could have been so much better.

Anyway, the keyboard will be utilized to the fullest extent possible in Event[0] which will amplify the immersive experience and make you feel part of the virtual world. Stuck in space aboard a broken space station called Nautilus (à la Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea) somewhere near Jupiter (In Space Odyssey 2001, a giant monolith appears near Jupiter’s moon Io) along with an A.I named Kaizen-85 that could help, align with your intentions & course towards Earth or frustrate, get moody, go rogue, reject your opinion & cause pandemonium. It's an endless list of character traits.

The developers say, " Kaizen's wordplay evolves with relationship. There can be gratitude, disappoint, or jealousy.”

With numerous computer screens to your aid at places you turn around, the player chats with the bot which is in control of the floating vessel and in turn control of your life. The game is ultimately a low profile psychological narrative that wants the astronaut to build a strong seeded relationship with the virtual organism to charter a course towards home base and side-by-side reveal a shocking story on the history of the ship and the murky truth of the "1980s society from which it emerged."

" Thanks to crowdfunding, developers are experimenting with concepts anew. The downside is that these indie features get buried deep by tent-pole games. Just doing my bit to popularize Event[0] and this one below "

Walking the length of the retro-futurist spaceship saddled with posters, light works and molded computer terminals while solving puzzles on the way - this survival-cum-adventure game could do well as a VR game. It's a nice way to play a first person exploration game. The trailer and demo gameplay footage show vagaries of emotion ranging from a creepy auditory atmosphere of your own panic short breaths to a set of anti-cherubic buddy conversations.

Kaizen-85 is designed to respond from more than two million lines of procedurally generated dialogues. That's right! Every conversation is unique. Instead of multiple role playing options with fixed answers, you get to communicate in words, phrases and sentences . I'm quite not sure if exclamation marks at the end of a dialogue will mean anything to the A.I.

Event[0] is the first project from the French indie game studio Ocelot Society. The developers part of this group are all credible successful game creators. What started as a college project in 2013 will be available in the next two months for Windows and Mac users. And we've a prequel story which I very much like to post it here but it's a bit lengthy; interesting nevertheless. Here's the link.