#technobabylon

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canon/implied/removed trans character icons!

if youre a weirdo i will fucking block you

Technobabylon is a 2015 cyberpunk point-and-click adventure game, developed by Technocrat Games in the Adventure Game Studio engine and published by Wadjet Eye Games of the Blackwell series fame. It is a traditional 2d game, using a pixel art style.

As usual with point-and-click adventure games, the story is the main focus. And Technobabylon is a cyberpunk story, set in the fictional city of Newton in the year 2087. It has all the traditional trappings of the genre. Newton is administrated by an AI, Central, genetic engineering is common, and the internet has evolved into a virtual reality called the “Trance”, which people connect to via nanomachine wiring in their heads called “wetware.”

The story focuses on the three playable characters. There is Charlie Regis, an aging agent of CEL, basically Newton’s police force and his partner on the job, Max Lao. And the third character is Latha Sesame, a unemployed “thrall” of the Trance. The three player characters show different views of the hi-tech world of Technobabylon. They are all tied together in a complex mystery/thriller plot, which I will allow you discover for yourself.

Because the story is really good. It’s intelligently written in a way few games are. It’s actually philosophical. The philosophical themes are the same as in a lot of cyberpunk, concerned with the subject of how technology impacts human freedom and power. The subgenre uses the freedom science fiction to imagine new forms of technology that brings these themes into sharp relief. Even if the technology does not exist, the questions they illustrate are relevant to the audience.

For example, the question of existential freedom, meaning the freedom of humans to create their own purpose in life and to determine what to do with their lives. How systems of hierarchical power such as capitalism deny humans that power by turning their lives into part of a machine to create profit. And how technology can both empower these systems and give the individual more power to determine their own path in life.

Technobabylon features genetic engineering and AI, which means there are humans and humanlike sentient beings who are created for a purpose. What about their freedom? The games features the horror of “gen-engineered” suicide bombers, genetically engineered before birth to grow explosives in their bones and raised from birth to become religious fanatics willing to sacrifice themselves. Even Central, the AI who seems all-powerful over the city of Newton, is subject to this denial of existential freedom, because she was created and exists solely to administer the city. If she is a system of control, she is herself controlled by existing for that purpose. These questions are eventually revealed to be central to the story, which is very nuanced in terms of morality.

The game gives other examples of how technology is used by powerful capitalist system to deny the freedom of the individual. Central extensively uses something that already exists in the real world, surveillance cameras. But the rest are science-fictional technological extensions of power that ring true. The carceral justice system uses “neural governor” implants to control the thoughts and behavior of former inmates. There is a virus that can hijack your brain via the aforementioned wetware to make you into a sweatshop factory slave. A major part of the plot is Charlie’s and Max’s investigation into series of “mindjackings”, where the criminal hacks into the victim’s brain to steal the information within, killing them in the process. You can understand the middle-aged technophobe Charlie, who refuses to get wetware installed, and uses an old fashioned screen to do computer stuff.

The game’s future history even has an extensive background of nuclear war, to illustrate the dangers of technology.

But there is also an awareness of how technology can empower the individual. Charlie’s younger partner Max Lao is pro-technology and has wetware installed. And you can learn in an optional conversation that she is a trans woman, who used genetic engineering to medically transition. For her, technology has given her power to determine her own existence.

The Trance in Technobabylon is another example of the game’s nuanced depiction of technology. It’s a good example of how the game takes a cyberpunk cliché, the Trance is at heart the same virtual reality internet trope from classic cyberpunk 80s/90s cyberpunk works, but by understanding the themes at the idea’s heart is able to make the genre tropes relevant for modern times.

The Trance feels like it’s commenting on the internet and video games we have in the 2010s/20. I like the touch that wetware is more like wi-fi than the traditional ethernet port into the brain, as in the one in Beneath a Steel Sky.We mainly see the Trance through the near-addict player character Latha, and she is a depiction of what we call the terminally online. And her escapism from the squalor and danger of her meatspace life is not the best thing for her life, it’s also understandable. The real world does suck for someone poor like her, and we learn during the game how the people in power have failed her. And for Latha the trance is an outlet for her creativity.

It’s great writing all around, it creates a fascinating mystery plot and a very believable cyberpunk world that grapples with the philosophical heart of the genre in intelligent ways. It’s one of the few games that when I try to explain its story, it makes me think of Camus’s thoughts on the absurd and Horkheimer’s criticism of instrumental rationality. Really impressive stuff from James Dearden, the man behind Technocrat games.

And this game does diversity right. It’s truly ethnically diverse, characters have all sorts of skin colors and ethnic backgrounds. Women characters are common and central to the plot. There is a gay male couple whose murders you investigate as part of the plot. And you can have optional conversations to discover a lesbian relationship and that Max, one of the player characters, is transfem. Their identities matter, but never defines their characters. The writing lets you discover all this on your own in a very natural way, and I like that. It’s not every game where two out of three player characters are women of color, one of which is trans.

The gameplay too is solid point-and-click adventure design that tries to minimize the problems such games can have. For example the game always keeps the amount of locations you have access to to a minimum to limit how lost you can get while trying to solve puzzles. The game makes up for this restriction by sometimes having multiple ways to solve puzzles, which is nice.

And it has its own little gameplay quirks that tie into the setting and the characters. Lahta’s chapters are based around using her ability to trance to solve puzzles, while other chapters require you to reprogram the AI minds of robots to proceed.

Overall I think the puzzle design hits a nice sweetspot in terms of difficulty where I felt challenged at certain points, but could press on and solve them, and I only once needed to resort to a guide (because I missed a couple of clickable hotspots in the game’s climax)

Technobabylon’s presentation is also stellar, and helps the story and atmosphere immensely. The art is by Wadjet eye Games regular Ben Chandler, and he again proves his skill at pixel art. The artstyle is visually appealing while conveying the grit and grime of many of the environments in Technobabylon. The voice acting is of a high standard, clearly in part courtesy of producer Dave Gilbert, with many of his Wadjet eye games regulars in the cast. The music by Nathan Pinard is so good that it makes it worth to buy the “deluxe edition” on GOG to get the soundtrack album by itself.

I could tell you that it’s a cyberpunk point-and-click adventure game with a great retro art style.

I could tell you how it has an amazing story that delves into issues both of the dangers of implementing technology without considering the repercussions with themes of class disparity front and center.

I could tell you that the game is filled with moments of absolute hilarity that made me literally hurt myself laughing.

I could tell you that the game’s object inventory puzzles are challenging without ever crossing the line into moon logic territory.

But no...I’m going to let this review sell you on the game.

Description: Screenshot of a Steam review titled “Tricked by the SJWs again!” Text: Snap, they got me good. Played just over 2 hours before they unleashed their agenda : suddenly I’m looking at interracial gay marriages and hanging with minority trans people in a progressive paradise where it is the norm, as apparently nobody is even surprised by it. Just past the refund period. Well, guess it’s my own fault for taking my time and inspecting everything instead of rushing through the story. EDIT : and now I found lesbians and a gay robot, and some other cringey thing I forgot.”

Boosts the likelihood of successful Charisma checks to potential apostates by 20%.

Boosts ability to catch fish by 80% when health is below 20%.

-90% to having sex.