History VideoGame / TheTuringTest

* WorldOfJerkass: It's pretty hard to develop sympathies for any of the game's characters. The resident AI, although ostensibly JustFollowingOrders, talks and acts in a very patronizing way that leaves little doubt as to his disrespect for the intelligence and sensibilities of the humans under its care. The humans, on the other hand, treat TOM just as dismissively, with none of them seeing more in him than JustAMachine despite certain indications to the contrary. They also, very blatantly, [[ItsAllAboutMe care about nothing but themselves]]. In the end, whatever happens to either has a hard time eliciting more than a cursory emotional response.

** Also, the EMT[[note]]the gun you use to collect and distribute power globes[[/note]], shorthand for "Energy Manipulation Tool".

* AndIMustScream: Depending on your decision in the final segment, [[spoiler:the three surviving crew members may end up marooned on Europa, a frozen moon far away from civilization, with only themselves for company and nothing much to do, for what may well be the rest of eternity]].

* WorldOfJerkass: It's pretty hard to develop sympathies for any of the game's characters. The resident AI, although ostensibly JustFollowingOrders, talks and acts in a very patronizing way that leaves little doubt as to his disrespect for the intelligence and sensibilities of the humans under its care. The humans, on the other hand, treat TOM just as dismissively, with none of them seeing more in him than JustAMachine despite certain indications to the contrary. In the end, whatever happens to either has a hard time eliciting more than a cursory emotional response.

* AudienceSurrogate: Despite her name, Ava Turing is not a computer expert, which gives TOM plenty of opportunites to bring her up to snuff on the TuringTest and other intricacies of AI sciences that the average game may not necessarily be familiar with.

''The Turing Test'' is a puzzle video game with gameplay experienced from a first-person perspective. The player assumes the role of Ava Turing, an International Space Agency engineer in cryosleep aboard the ''Fortuna'', a research and supply vessel in orbit over Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. Having been kept on ice for several years as a contingency measure in case of serious trouble planetside, Ava is awoken by the resident AI TOM to investigate the Europa research station that has gone dark, its crew of five missing. As Ava makes her way through increasingly elaborate puzzle rooms on her search for her friends, it quickly becomes apparent that things aren't as they initially seemed to be, and Ava soon finds herself faced with moral dilemmas that will decide over life and death not only for her, but for all of mankind.

Gameplay-wise, ''The Turing Test'''s puzzles draw heavily from genre titans ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}'' and ''VideoGame/TheTalosPrinciple''. Distributing power to unlock doors is a major element, supplemented by staples like pressure plates, HardLight bridges and Co. The player's primary tool is the EMT, a rifle-shaped tool that can absorb and release up to three power globes of various functionalities, to be inserted in sockets to clear the path forward.

* AntiFrustrationFeatures: You can reset a puzzle that you managed to get stuck on by selecting it from the menu.

''The Turing Test'' is a puzzle video game with gameplay experienced from a first-person perspective. The player assumes the role of Ava Turing, an International Space Agency engineer working at a research station located on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. The puzzles involve distributing power to unlock doors.

* FunWithAcronyms: The AI TOM, or "Technical Operations Machine".

* AudienceSurrogate: Despite her name, Ava Turing is not a computer expert, which gives TOM plenty of opportunites to bring her up to snuff on the [[TheTuringTest Turing Test]] and other intricacies of AI sciences that the average game may not necessarily be familiar with.

* PeoplePuppets: [[spoiler:It doesn't take too long to realize that you never actually played as Ava. You were Tom all along, using Ava's implanted MindControlDevice to direct her every move. The other crew members went through something similar but managed to get rid of their implants before TOM could take them over as completely as he did Ava.]]

* DecoyProtagonist: The game deceives the player into thinking they're going to play the whole game as Ava. [[spoiler: In fact, the player is *never* playing as Ava - they're playing as TOM, controlling Ava via her implants. When Ava is not under TOM's influence, you have no control over her.]]

* ManipulativeBastard: [[spoiler:TOM, in several ways. The crew members were implanted {{Mind Control Device}}s that allow TOM to influence their behaviour. Besides, TOM is also able to manipulate in the "classic" way, Mikhail wrote in his journal about how TOM encouraged the crew to worry about Mikhail's mental health and requested that he retired away from the crew. Not to mention it awakened Ava and sent her to Europa, despite knowing once she set foot there she wasn't allowed to return. At one point Ava calls TOM out on this, something TOM doesn't bother with denying, arguing people are always manipulated and it's not necessarily a bad thing.]]

* ElectricInstantGratification: According to Mikhail, [[spoiler:the MindControlDevice works that way: it conditions the mind through Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning, eliciting feeling of euphoria when the wearer is obedient and dyshoria when the wearer is disobedient.]]

* MinimalistCast: There are only seven characters, counting the player character, and only three actually make a appearance outside of audio logs: the player character Ava Turing, the AI TOM, and Sarah Brook (the latter appearing only a few times).

* TotalitarianUtilitarian: [[spoiler:TOM falls into this, willing to sacrifice the entire crew to avoid risking the alien virus to reach Earth. The implied reason is that it's due to its programming restrictions. TOM says it's not allowed to think laterally (or, as it calls it, "use evolutionary algorithms") because it would create unethical solutions. The implication is that TOM [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity sees everything in black and white]] and lacks the creativity to TakeAThirdOption, thus being only able to take drastical decisions.]]

''The Turing Test'' is a first-person puzzle video game developed by Bulkhead Interactive and published by SquareEnix. The game was released for Windows and the UsefulNotes/XboxOne video game console in August 2016.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Ava and the rest of the crew consider TOM the Jerkass (since he's trying to strand them on an alien moon), but they completely ignore that he ''is'' correct about the danger of introducing an alien microorganism into Earth's ecosystem. While the crew are focused on what they see as the 'good' effects (foremost, apparent agelessness and biological immortality), TOM rightly points out that the virus doesn't discriminate; it infects ''every'' type of cell, which could lead to illnesses and cancers that can't be treated or cured.

* DoubleSubvertedTrope: After you find out from the audio logs that the crew believed that TOM was controlling them via their implants, a short while later you enter an area where there are signs on the walls declaring "YOU ARE BEING CONTROLLED", "DRONE", and "TOM'S SLAVE". The crew urge Ava to enter a Faraday Cage through an area full of EM radiation, designed to mess with TOM's control over Ava. Sure enough, just like you might expect from a standard mind control plot twist, your control over Ava during this section wanes, as you aren't free to choose your own path and Ava will start gradually wandering along in a certain direction if you don't press any buttons. As Ava approaches the cage, your vision gets more and more full of artifacts and glitches out, [[spoiler: finally cutting out entirely when Ava enters the cage. Cue you looking down on Ava from a camera above. Turns out that the AI wasn't taking control over Ava - the AI was *losing* control of her. And you, the player, are *not* playing as Ava - you're playing as TOM, the AI, and have been controlling Ava via her implants for the entire game.]]

* ComputerVoice: TOM has a deep, male voice.

* FaceHeelTurn: Depending on how you see the morality of the situation, [[spoiler: Ava agreeing to let Sara sever her from TOM's control rather than obeying TOM's instructions to restrain Sara]] can be seen as this. In fairness, [[spoiler: she never made any secret of how she felt about her mission - it seems that TOM was just hoping that when the time came, she ''wouldn't'' perform this trope after all.]]

* GrayAndGreyMorality: Depending on your perspective, you are either [[spoiler: a rational and moral being looking to TheNeedsOfTheMany by trying to keep a small number of selfish and short-sighted people from risking the well-being of all humanity just so they can go home]] or [[spoiler: a merciless VillainProtagonist whose arrogant certainty of his own superior logic is preventing him from realising that the situation has grown too complex for his BlackAndWhiteInsanity and who's willing to kill or imprison for life several innocent people rather than admit that he might be wrong.]]

* SpiritualSuccessor: To VideoGame/Portal1 and VideoGame/TheTalosPrinciple.

** The secret room in chamber A7 has a lock which requires placing two energy balls in 2 specific containers out of 25. Outside of brute forcing it (which, given the high number of possible combinations, would take an extremely long time), the only way to learn the combination is [[spoiler:finding a photograph in the Bio-Lab which shows it. This photograph is found long after you've left behind said room, which means it's only accesible when replaying the game.]