News
Event[0] Releases
PARIS – September 14, in the year of our Lord 2016
– Type like your life depends on it as Event[0], the
story-driven spacefaring adventure in which players must build a
relationship with a lonely spaceship computer to get home,
launches today on Windows PC and Mac via Steam, the Humble Store
by Humble Bundle, GOG.com, Itch.io, and Games Republic.
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. As
a player, your only companion is an insecure and unstable AI
entity named Kaizen, with whom you interact by typing messages
using antiquated computer terminals throughout a desolated
spacecraft. The game’s multi-layered story emerges organically
as players communicate with Kaizen, freely explore 3D
environments, gather information and solve hacking puzzles. Each
player will enjoy a unique gameplay experience based on the way
they choose to communicate with Kaizen, who procedurally
generates over two million lines of dialog and demonstrates a
variety of different personalities, and communication responses,
influenced by human input.
As in any relationship, there can be gratitude, disappointment
or jealousy, and 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. By working through the fears and anxieties of a virtual
companion players can ultimately find the way back to
Earth—while unraveling the cryptic history of the ship and the
1980s society from which it emerged.
The game is created using Unity 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, most of the sound, including incidental
music, comes from items in the environment.
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 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. Event[0] is now backed by France’s CNC
public arts organization and by the Indie Fund, an esteemed
funding source for independent developers launched as an
alternative to traditional publisher models.
Event[0] is available now on Steam, Humble Bundle, GOG.com,
Itch.io, and Games Republic for $19.99. No word on a physical
copy version of this game at this time. Families are required to
pay for Internet usage fees to download this game. For more
information click
here.