Code 7 – Episode 0

Computers are already an indispensable part of our lives, even if we don’t realize it most of the time. The Internet of Things is about to take everyone by surprise as well, although many devices are already connected to each other and to the web one way or another. Thus, hacking is about to become much more scary, especially when you think about self-driving cars and smart homes.

Code 7 – Episode 0 is an interesting puzzle game with text-based interface and fully voice-acted dialog, which makes for a very neat experience. The whole adventure is about the human race reaching beyond our solar system and our interaction with artificial intelligence, but there are other themes in there as well.

The story starts when a group of people is sent on a spaceship to try and establish the first colony on an outside galaxy, which unfortunately does not go as planned. After contact with the ship is lost, two agents are sent to investigate it, which is is where you come in. Thus, you play the role of Alex, a hacker who must find out where everything went wrong, together with his partner Sam.

Since there are no 3D environments to explore or anything of the sort, your only option is to use terminal commands like in the good old days. The system is actually very nicely implemented, because it even comes with an auto-complete function that saves you a lot of time. There are hacking mini-games as well, which are actually quite challenging and they prevent you from getting bored.

As for the actual puzzles, there are all sorts of obstacles to overcome, depending on whether you have to explore certain locations, open doors, or simply hack into computers in order to extract information. Naturally, there is no artwork to admire along the way, but there are all sorts of interesting visual effects, as well as an engaging soundtrack to keep you in the mood for hacking.

In the end, Code 7 – Episode 0 is extremely polished and well-designed for a text-based adventure, which is why it deserves a try from every gamer out there. However, it also deserves your support at the moment, and you can show it by backing the project on Kickstarter.