Event[0], by the title alone doesn’t initially scream “Buy Me”, but if you like puzzle games, I suggest you do purchase this title. Ocelot Society introduces us to a Space Puzzle game where you interact with a computer known as Kaizen. You must complete a series of hacking puzzles to help you and Kaizen get back home.
The graphics in Event[0] are good, but not breathtaking. However, they don’t need to be. They do a great job of conveying your environment in space without necessarily adding every minute detail into the scenes. One thing I did notice that puzzled me was my FPS ran less than 30FPS as I traversed the spaceship. I’m running an FX-8320 processor with 16GB RAM and a 4GB GTX 960 card. I guess I was expecting higher FPS given my system. The game ran smooth enough that it was still enjoyable to play.
Gameplay in Event[0] is what grabbed my attention. Being an old school gamer, I remember playing the old text adventure games like Amazon. Playing Event[0] brought back those fond memories only in a new setting. Progressing around the spaceship I found myself looking at every object hoping for a clue my current puzzle. Navigating through the various room using the default method takes a little bit of time. Left button to go forward, right button to go back. While this seemed awkward, you can easily go into the Options menu and select the more familiar keyboard keys for navigation. Interacting with Kaizen is fun. Your experience is dependent on how you interact with him as he can procedurally generate over two million lines of dialog. Kaizen is much more than a static non-emotional computer. He has a wide variety of emotions as you interact with him. Given all that, I did find a few times where his response to my typing was either repetitive or didn’t make sense in context.
Audio in Event[0] is solid. You hear the tinny sound as you walk across the metal floors inside the spacecraft. The sounds of sparks shooting out of live wires laying on the feet of walls and doorways are nice touches. There is no direct score that plays throughout the game, but there are some sounds you hear as you walk that gives a slight hint of something ominous around the corner. Kaizen’s voice was what you might expect a robot voice to be, but there were times he sounded a little muffled. The best part of the audio for me was something simple, the typing. I loved hearing the clicks in the game when interacting with my robot friend. I use a mechanical keyboard on my primary machine and typing in Event[0] provides a similar sound to typing on a mechanical keyboard.
One other thing I wanted to mention is the support. When reviewing the game, I initially had an issue when the mouse would disappear on the main screen of the game. I emailed the support team at Ocelot and was pleasantly surprised when I received a response within a couple hours. I honestly wasn’t expecting a response so soon. The issue was resolved with updated video drivers, but I was impressed how quick they reached out to me to resolve the issue. It’s nice seeing good customer service in action!
Event[0] is current available on Steam for 19.99 and is a great pick up for any fan of space or puzzle games.