News
Event[0] Announced
PARIS – July 13, in the year of our Lord 2016 – IN SPACE, NO
ONE CAN HEAR YOU TYPE… Event[0], the award-winning sci-fi
narrative exploration game in which players must build a
relationship with a lonely spaceship computer to get home, is
coming to Windows PC and Mac this September via Steam and the
Humble Store by Humble Bundle.
The indie game first drew attention as a concept demo that won
multiple indie gaming awards, including Innovation at BIG 2015
and Student Award winner at EIGD 2014. The first-person
narrative exploration game transports players to the desolated
spacecraft, Nautilus. As a player, your only companion is an
insecure AI entity named Kaizen with whom you interact by typing
messages on computer terminals throughout the ship. The game’s
multi-layered story emerges organically as players communicate
with Kaizen, freely explore 3D environments, gather information
and solve hacking puzzles.
Set in a retrofuture inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris
and Brave New World, Event[0] is a game about building a
personal relationship with a machine using natural language.
Kaizen can procedurally generate over two million lines of
dialog and the AI entity has a strong personality influenced by
human input. Players communicate by typing messages into a
computer, and Kaizen responds. As in any relationship, there can
be gratitude, disappointment or jealousy, and Kaizen reacts
differently depending on its mood. By working through the fears
and anxieties of your virtual companion you can ultimately find
your way back to Earth—while unraveling the cryptic history of
the ship and the 1980s society from which it emerged.
Event[0] began as a six-month student project before morphing
into a full title under the auspices of Ocelot Society, which
was founded by key members of the team. The game is backed by
France’s CNC public arts organization and by the Indie Fund, a
funding source for independent developers launched as an
alternative to traditional publisher models.
“Event[0] takes me back to the kind of magic I felt playing Zork
as a kid,” said Ron Carmel, Co-Founder of Indie Fund and
Co-Creator of World of Goo. “There are moments where I can
suspend disbelief and feel like I’m actually having a
conversation with an advanced AI, probing its inner workings
with words.”
The game is created using Unity Engine 5 and utilizes
physics-based rendering and advanced lighting techniques to
create richly detailed environments inside and outside the ship
(players can leave the ship for breathtakingly scary
spacewalks). Eschewing a traditional game score, all sound,
including incidental music, comes from items in the environment.
The ship is essentially the AI computer’s body, and reacts to
Kaizen’s mood by making different sounds—which can give the
player valuable clues.
“Event[0] is like our AI child: over the past two years it has
grown from a vibrant but limited concept into a fully realized
narrative exploration game,” said Léonard Carpentier, Co-founder
and CEO of Ocelot Society. “Our team has created an evocative
world for players to explore and Kaizen can’t wait to find new
humans to become best friends with!”
Families are required to pay for Internet usage fees to download
this game. For more information click
here.