Event 0 (stylized as event[0] is a 2016 adventure/Environmental Narrative Game Indie Game (with a heavy influence from Interactive Fiction) by Paris-based Ocelot Society.
The game takes place in an Alternate Universe 2012, where mass space travel has been common for upwards of three decades. The player character's ship headed towards Europa is damaged, and the escape pod takes them to a luxury cruiser from the 1980s titled the Nautilus. The ship appears to be deserted, with the only company on board being the ship's sentient computer, Kaizen-85.
event[0] is notable in part for its interface and complex design; the player can only interact at terminals where they can "talk" to Kaizen, who responds to requests in a fairly realistic way. The mechanic got high praise, including earning the game a nomination for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2017 Independent Games Festival.
Tropes featured in event[0] include:
- 20 Minutes into the Past: The game is set in 2012, four years before it was released in real life, but because the technology is much more advanced, it's only noticeable when reading the dates on the ship logs.
- The '80s: The terminals on the ship match the bulky tech of the era, as it was built in an alternate 1980s.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Implied. When you arrive, the Nautilus is conspiculously empty, and Kaizen maintains innocence while also getting cagey about what happened on the ship. It turns out that he was in fact innocent, and was not directly responsible for the deaths of Nandi or Anele.
- Alternate Universe: As stated in the description, in the world of event[0], humanity has been traveling long distances through space since the 1980s.
- Anti-Frustration Feature: Passcodes that you need to remember will appear on a dashboard on the upper righthand corner.
- Apocalyptic Log: The terminal logs serve as backstory for how the deserted Nautilus wound up this way.
- Artificial Intelligence: Kaizen
- Cargo Ship: In-universe, Kaizen cares very deeply about Nandi, and bemoans her absence, despite just being a program.
- Developer's Foresight: The programming of Kaizen is an impressive achievement. While Kaizen probably wouldn't pass a Turing Test, it could definitely fool players into believing that it is a functioning AI. This video
(warning: contains spoilers) goes more in depth on the complexity involved. - Foreshadowing: Sometimes, red text will appear in Kaizen's dialog before quickly being deleted. In the conclusion, you discover that this is actually Anele, who succeeded in uploading her consciousness into the computer, but couldn't overpower Kaizen on her own.
- Gainax Ending: The "Together Forever" ending is definitely stranger than the other two. It ends with you merging your consciousness with Anele's and replacing Kaizen in the ship's computer, then piloting back to Earth to bring the powerful Singularity Drive to the masses and maybe kickstart instellar colonies for the less wealthy. Maybe.
- Hell Is That Noise: Your spacesuit's beeping when it's low on oxygen.
- Locked Door: You encounter D7, which leads to the Bridge, early in the game, but are unable to access it to disable the Singularity Drive like Kaizen asks.
- Multiple Endings: Three standard endings, plus a secret fourth one that came about
by complete organic accident. - Posthumous Character: The crew of the Nautilus has passed away before the player arrives, which includes Kaizen's favorite crewmember Nandi as well as Anele.
- Room Full of Crazy: The corridor to the bridge is filled with Anele's work on merging with the ship computer, as well as a variety of quotes. Kaizen offers this as proof that she went off the deep end. Also justified since Anele ran out of paper some time earlier.
- Shout-Out: One of the logs on the bridge transcribes Anele giving Kaizen the Voight-Kampf test.
- Story Breadcrumbs: Each terminal has a log of what went on at the terminal, both what was typed in and conversations overheard. This does a decent bit of the narrative lifting.
- Warp Drive: The Nautilus' Singularity Drive powers its travels. Kaizen is worried that it is unstable.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Anele regrets her death, but deems that Nandi "had to be dealt with" for siding with Kurt Taylor.
