View source for Event 0

{{short description|2016 first-person exploration video game}}
{{Redirect|Event Zero|event boundaries in physics|Event horizon}}
{{correct title|''Event[0]''|reason=bracket|edit=omission}}
{{Infobox video game
| title = Event[0]
| image = Event0 logo.png
| caption =
| developer = Ocelot Society
| publisher = Ocelot Society
| engine = [[Unity (game engine)|Unity]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://twitter.com/AlessiaNigretti/status/1007944975466860545?cxt=HHwWgsC8_ayn-PwbAAAA |title=Tweet retweeted by official Event[0] account |website=Twitter |date=June 16, 2018 |access-date=27 December 2022}}</ref>
| platforms = {{cslist|[[Microsoft Windows|Windows]]|[[macOS]]}}
| released = September 14, 2016
| genre = [[Adventure game|Adventure]]
| modes = [[Single-player video game|Single-player]]
| designer =
| programmer =
| artist =
| composer =
}}
'''''Event[0]''''' is a [[First-person (video games)|first-person]] [[science fiction]] [[adventure game]] developed and published by Ocelot Society. It was released on September 14, 2016, for both [[Microsoft Windows]] and [[macOS]]. The game follows an astronaut en route to [[Europa (moon)|Europa]], who, after their ship suffers a catastrophic failure, takes refuge in a dilapidated leisure ship, with the only remaining entity on board being the ship's [[Artificial intelligence|AI]], Kaizen-85. Gameplay consists of exploring the ship, repairing it in hopes of escaping, and speaking with Kaizen-85, an AI with whom the player can converse at length.. The game received positive reviews upon release.
==Plot and gameplay==
''Event[0]'' is set in an [[alternate timeline]] where humanity achieved interplanetary space travel as early as the 1980s. The game takes place in this timeline's 2012, where the player's character is selected by International Transport Spacelines (ITS) to be part of a mission to Jupiter's moon Europa from Earth. En route, the ship suffers a catastrophic failure, and the player-character appears to be the only member of its crew to escape into a lifepod. The pod drifts for several weeks until it comes across the ''Nautilus'', a leisure ship built in the 1980s. The player character docks with the ship and discovers that while the ''Nautilus'' is still functional, it has fallen into disrepair, with no sign of its human crew. The only conversations on the ship are through the ship's artificial intelligence (AI) named Kaizen-85 (from the Japanese word [[kaizen]] meaning "continuous improvement"), who communicates with the player-character through keyboard terminals throughout the ship. Kaizen-85 instructs the player-character to destroy the ''Nautilus''{{'}}s "Singularity Drive", the engine that powers the ship, as it claims this will enable it to return them both back to Earth.<ref name=pcg/><ref name=steam/> However, as the player explores the station more, they discover that many of the doors and systems have been locked down, apparently by the previous human crew, and they must work with Kaizen-85 to access these systems.
The player communicates with the AI by physically typing input instead of selecting from a set of inputs.<ref name=WCCFtech/> The AI is capable of procedurally generating over two million lines of dialog, with personality influenced by the player's input.<ref name=euro/> The player must gather clues to discover what happened on the ship and eventually finds out that the Captain of the ''Nautilus'', Anele Johnson, murdered Nandi, one of the crew members, so as not to allow Kaizen to destroy the Singularity Drive. When the player recovers the code to the bridge terminal and enters it, they can find Anele Johnson's body in one of the seats, who was presumably killed after merging with the Nautilus mainframe. Depending on the player's choices and their attitude toward Kaizen, multiple endings can occur.
=== Lore ===
The game takes place on the ''Nautilus'', a luxury tourist ship owned by the ITS corporation (International Transport Spacelines). The ''Nautilus'' is equipped with an AI named Kaizen-85.
===Endings===
The first ending is achieved when the player allows Kaizen to destroy the Singularity Drive. The player will then engage in a conversation with Anele Johnson's consciousness via computer; she is angry at the player and explains that in order to save humanity, the player must upload their consciousness into the computer so as to overpower Kaizen. If the player agrees to this, the player character is killed, and their consciousness is uploaded to the computer. Within the computer system, they are told by Anele's consciousness that Kurt, the President of ITS, convinced Kaizen to lie about the Singularity Drive. She also explains that destroying the Drive will mean that humans will never develop advanced colonies. After going through all the doors, Anele asks the player if they want to go home, and the final door will open, and Earth can be seen in the distance before the credits roll.
The second ending is achieved if the player refuses to upload their consciousness. If the player has mistreated Kaizen and/or refused to destroy the drive, he will reply that he is "too old for this" and will delete his memory from the ''Nautilus''{{'}}s mainframe and hand over control to the player. A cutscene will play showing the current state of each room the player previously explored before the credits roll.
The third ending is achieved if the player refuses to upload their consciousness but treats Kaizen kindly enough; he will remember events during their time speaking before he launches the emergency boosters and tells the player, "Let's go home." A cutscene will play with the ''Nautilus'' steadily moving towards the Earth before the credits roll. This is the only ending in which the credits cannot be skipped.
Although the game has three default, a fourth ending can be achieved if the player refuses to destroy the Singularity Drive, refuses to upload their consciousness, ''and'' has treated Kaizen kindly throughout the game (in effect ignoring its [[MacGuffin]]s. After questioning the player's trust, Kaizen can be nonetheless convinced to send the ''Nautilus'' to Earth even though the drive has not been . The same cutscene as the third ending then plays before the credits. The inadvertent fourth ending, which was due to a [[software bug|bug]], has been labeled as the "secret ending".
==Development==
''Event[0]'' began as part of a graduate student project at the National School of Video Game and Interactive Media in France (Enjmin) in 2013. The students later formed Ocelot Society in order to continue development into a commercial project.<ref name=euro/><ref name=igm/> The team that worked on ''Event[0]'' is composed of eleven people.<ref name=igm/> In 2014, the game received the student award at the European Indie Game Days as well as the Innovation award at BIG 2015. ''Event[0]'' received funding from France's [[National Center of Cinematography and the moving image|CNC]] as well as from the [[Indie Fund]].<ref name=euro/>
The game, as released, had three expected endings, with Ocelot Society having dropped a possible fourth ending prior to release. However, around July 2017, Emmanuel Corno, one of the developers and writers at Ocelot, noted that the [[Wikipedia]] page for the game described a different fourth ending to the game (the last one listed above), which he affirmed was possible to obtain in the released game and was ''not'' the same as the dropped ending. Corno attributed this unexpected ending to be the result of a bug the team had not caught this point, but was pleased that it existed as the [[emergent gameplay]] made the artificial intelligence they created feel "more human".<ref>{{Cite web | url = http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/301642/Event0_has_an_ending_so_secret_even_the_dev_team_didnt_know_about_it.php | title=  Event[0] has an ending so secret even the dev team didn't know about it | first = Alex | last = Wawro | date = July 12, 2017 | accessdate = July 12, 2017 | work = [[Gamasutra]] }}</ref>
==Reception==
''Event[0]'' has received positive reviews and has a score of 78 on [[Metacritic]].<ref name="mc" /> Reviewers have compared ''Event[0]'' to games such as the solitary narrative of ''[[Firewatch]]''<ref name=euro/> as well as the ''[[King's Quest]]'' series.<ref name=inverse/> The environment has been compared to the spaceship in [[Ridley Scott]]'s [[Alien (film)|''Alien'']].<ref name=inverse/> Several reviewers have also noted the similarities between ''Event[0]'s'' Kaizen AI and [[HAL 9000]] from [[Stanley Kubrick]]'s film ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey (film)|2001: A Space Odyssey]]''.<ref name=euro/><ref name=pcg2/> A common complaint, even among positive reviews, is the game's very short play time: as little as 3 hours for the first playthrough and an hour for subsequent playthroughs for the other endings. ''Event[0]'' was nominated for the [[Seumas McNally Grand Prize]] and for the Excellence in Design and Excellence in Narrative awards for the 2017 [[Independent Games Festival]].<ref name="IGF: 2017">{{cite web |url=http://www.polygon.com/2017/1/9/14214750/2017-igf-awards-nominees-inside-hyper-light-drifter-virginia-host-nina-freeman | title = Hyper Light Drifter, Inside and Virginia among nominees for 2017 IGF Awards | first = Charlie | last = Hall | date = January 9, 2017 | accessdate = January 9, 2017 | work = [[Polygon (website)|Polygon]] }}</ref>
A scholarly article indicated ''Event[0]''<nowiki/>'s references to the philosophy of [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel]] (including [[graffiti]]) as well as the game's links to the [[Posthumanism|posthuman turn]] in philosophy. The author of the article notes that the game reflects a change in the way artificial intelligence is portrayed in video games; AI in ''Event[0]'' does not have to become an enemy as it had been common in video games, but can develop into an equal partner depending on the player's actions.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Jankowski|first=Filip|date=2020-08-26|title=Galaktyka Hegla. "Event[0]" jako gra (post)humanistyczna|url=https://czasopisma.ispan.pl/index.php/kf/article/view/142|journal=Kwartalnik Filmowy|language=pl|issue=110|pages=120–136|doi=10.36744/kf.142|issn=2719-2725|doi-access=free}}</ref>
==References==
{{Reflist|refs=
<ref name="pcg">{{cite web |url=http://www.pcgamer.com/event0-a-space-adventure-about-befriending-ai-releases-this-september/ |title=Event[0], a space adventure about befriending AI, releases this September |website=[[PC Gamer]]|publisher=[[Future plc]]|date=July 13, 2016 |accessdate=August 17, 2016}}</ref>
<ref name="steam">{{cite web |url=http://store.steampowered.com/app/470260/ |title=Event[0] |website=[[Steam (service)|Steam]] |accessdate=August 17, 2016}}</ref>
<ref name="WCCFtech">{{cite web |url=http://wccftech.com/sci-fi-game-event0-pc-screenshots/ |title=Event[0], a Sci-Fi Game About Building Relationship With Powerful A.I., Releases This September |website=WCCFtech |date=July 15, 2016 |accessdate=August 17, 2016}}</ref>
<ref name="euro">{{cite web |url=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-07-13-event-0-is-2001-meets-firewatch-due-this-september |title=Event[0] is 2001 meets Firewatch, due this September |website=[[Eurogamer]]|publisher=Gamer Network|date=July 13, 2016 |accessdate=August 17, 2016}}</ref>
<ref name="igm">{{cite web |url=http://indiegamemag.com/event0-a-narrativeexploration-heavy-sci-fi-thriller/ |title=Event[0] - A Narrative/Exploration-heavy Sci-fi Thriller |work=Indie Game Magazine |accessdate=August 17, 2016}}</ref>
<ref name="inverse">{{cite web |url=https://www.inverse.com/article/18232-event0-ai-natural-language-processing-video-game |title=The Eerie 'Event[0]' Asks You to Talk With a HAL-Like Space Computer |work=Inverse |date=July 13, 2016 |accessdate=August 17, 2016}}</ref>
<ref name="pcg2">{{cite web |url=http://www.pcgamer.com/converse-with-a-sentient-ai-in-sci-fi-adventure-event0/ |title=Converse with a sentient AI in sci-fi adventure Event[0] |website=[[PC Gamer]]|publisher=[[Future plc]]|date=October 29, 2014 |accessdate=August 17, 2016}}</ref>
<ref name="mc">{{cite web |url=https://www.metacritic.com/game/event0/critic-reviews/?platform=pc |title=Event[0] for PC Reviews - Metacritic |work=[[Metacritic]] |accessdate=September 24, 2016}}</ref>
}}
==External links==
* {{official website|http://event0game.com/}}
{{Portal bar|Video games}}
[[Category:2016 video games]]
[[Category:Adventure games set in space]]
[[Category:Dystopian video games]]
[[Category:Walking simulators]]
[[Category:Indie games]]
[[Category:MacOS games]]
[[Category:Science fiction video games]]
[[Category:Single-player video games]]
[[Category:Video games developed in France]]
[[Category:Games financed by Indie Fund]]
[[Category:Video games set in 2012]]
[[Category:Video games with gender-selectable protagonists]]
[[Category:Windows games]]