Event[0] started out as a student project. Indie studio Ocelot Society, with former members of Ubisoft (Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs), Amplitude Studios (Endless Legend) and Tequila Works (Rime), is now developing it as its first game.

As I watched the video, I immediately thought of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And that’s not a bad thing.

In Event[0], you’re alone on a damaged and abandoned ship called the Nautilus. You’ll communicate with somewhat less-than-cooperative, speech-equipped A.I. by way of computer screens.

Unfortunately, the computer isn’t working properly and its speech is garbled. Fortunately, the speech appears as text on its screens in a non-garbled state.

When you tell the A.I. you want to go extravehicular it won’t let you do so, telling you its been alone too long. Something could happen to you out there, which would leave the A.I. on its own again. 

After some strained conversation, the A.I. relents and opens the appropriate door and you go outside. But when you start to run out of oxygen, the A.I. won’t let you back in.

Open the pod bay doors, HAL. (Er, nope.)

Emmanuel Corno, Ocelot Society Founding Partner and Game Designer: Our goal is to seek new ways to play (both as a business and regarding video games that we produce) and disrupt the status quo. We believe in high production values for the next generation of indie games while staying creative at all cost.

Event[0] will be released on PC/Windows and Mac at a date TBD. Ocelot has published a text prequel to the game here.