Silicon Dreams
SILICON DREAMS asks, are you feeling lucky, cyberpunk?
Although Blade Runner has inspired three trillion and six movies, games, books, comics, albums, and cereals, only a tiny percentage of these have understood (or even tried to understand) the movie. Throwing neon signs and Japanese words around your environment like a baby gleefully hurling porridge across the kitchen has nothing to do with cyberpunk. Here, however, we have a game that not only understands Blade Runner, but thoroughly deserves to be mentioned alongside it. Y’know, like I just did.
Your character is an android created with the sole purpose of running what is for legal reasons absolutely not a Voight-Kampff machine. The game (mostly) consists of a half dozen or so interrogations conducted with this machine. Usually you’ll be speaking with androids, but occasionally with a human. You see, while you will at one point be tasked with determining whether somebody is human or android, the experience for the most part takes sharp turns into territory you’ll never see coming.
With no voice acting and relatively simple graphics, there is enormous pressure on the script. The writing is incredible, some of the best I’ve come across in a game in years. Somewhat ironically, each and every android that I meet seems more human than most of the other countless characters I’ve met in other games.
The depth and texture afforded to the interview subjects is not only impressive, it is incredibly important to the experience. I’m being pulled in several directions at once. Every interview has an accompanying report to be filled in and, for androids, one of three choices must be made: Release, send for maintenance (which guarantees a memory wipe), or destroy. Yet things are not nearly as simple as they may appear.
As an android myself, I am expected to toe the company line at all times. It’s made clear that any attempt to defy my employers, or provision of information that contradicts their expectations (intentionally or otherwise), will immediately cast suspicion on me. I am assessed for my performance after every interview. If my rating falls too low, I will be destroyed and replaced. That’s automation for you.
DOUBLE DECKARD
The interrogation machine that you use displays the emotions that accompany the answers of interviewees, exposing lies and confirming truths. Certain androids are also supposed to have certain emotions limited or disabled, and the company expects you to report any such deviations. Ingratiate yourself with the company enough and you even unlock the ability to slowly induce an emotion of your choice.
During one interrogation, I’m told that in order to get a truthful answer to an important question, I’ll need to induce fear in the subject. Hating myself for doing so, but considering it necessary, I lock down the shackles in the interview chair. The interviewee immediately becomes surprised and distressed and, well, it achieves the desired effect.
Most conversations twist and turn into unexpected alleys, and throw me into a variety of emotional corners. One android I eventually decided to trash but felt terrible about it; another, I sympathized with to the point where I decided that a memory wipe was the best option, and I felt saddened when the company destroyed him anyway.
While the writing consistently displays impressive subtlety and enormous intelligence, at one point providing a strong analogy for the life of some sectors of the working class. I have mixed feelings about the first ending I got which, while providing meaningful summaries of the fates of my interviewees, provided an epilogue for myself which didn’t lead on quite so smoothly from my final actions. Nonetheless, it’s an experience that will stay with me for some time, and one that I know I’ll be going back to.
The writing is incredible, some of the best I’ve come across