2064: Read Only Momories

Note: Look at this! We're late with this post! I honestly have no good excuse for it, I just forgot to queue this up to go live while I was at work. So, enjoy!

2064: Read Only Memories is an adventure-visual novel by MidBoss, Kossio, and JJSignal originally released in 2015. After a quick Google search and clicking on no links, all I've learned is that there's a compatible version of this game for the Switch and the term 'cyberpunk' is used a lot. Oh, and that it seems to be described as 'stylish' pretty constantly in article descriptions.

Add in some funky little robots and an apartment in Not-San Francisco that looks maybe a bit too much like something I probably live in, and we start the game.

To start out, this game immediately, full speed, no hesitation, punched me in the face. How? you might be asking. In what reality would it be possible for a video game that's overheating your laptop to have the physical properties to punch you in the face?

Well.

Not only does MC live in a rundown apartment with spoiled milk and half a bottle of mustard, not only do they have an ancient laptop that really only works on spite and a prayer, not only do they make a living writing articles online, Not Only do they have an over watered succulent in their window, Not Only do they have an incomplete (Read: Unstarted) Manuscript rotting away on their desk. To put it simply, when I got up to get a snack and saw the similarities of my own living space, and took into account how I made most of my income during this whole plague when my theatre shut down, and the fact that I too had spoiled (soy)milk and half a bottle of mustard as pretty much all that was in my fridge, and let's just say getting punched would have been kinder.

Of course, I never got a robot intruder named Turing break into my house while I was sleeping. So I guess that's a plus.

Back to the game, though. Set in Neo-San Francisco, which I am guessing is either a New San Francisco kind of deal or a 'The-Earthquakes-Finally-Got-To-Them' kind of thing. Either way, it seems very much like normal San Francisco but with a lot more robots. It's the year 2064 and human-hybrids are running around due to the new accessibility of body modifications available, and the growing trend of better and better technology is causing the Doomers some very easy targets to go after.

You, the Character, MC, are a schlubby article writer living in a rundown studio apartment and generally not doing too much. Poking around your space doesn't really find anything super interesting other than the thing that may or may not be growing in your sink or the pair of headphones that you're supposed to write a review about. You live like a freelancer.

The story picks up when this blushy little robot named Turing breaks into your house while you're sleeping to ask for help. Or, they do, after they clean and organize your stuff and read you for filth on your living conditions in a bright and cheery way. You come to find out that Turing is the latest creation of your old friend, Heydan, who is a researcher at one of the top robotics companies in the world but that you haven't seen in forever, and is an actual AI. Not just an intelligent system, but real artificial intelligence.

Things pick up from there and you soon find yourself agreeing to help Turing look for your missing friend who has been possibly kidnapped. More than likely kidnapped, really. And was probably expecting it which is a horrifying thought really.

There's detective work and intrigue and robots. Unfortunatly I'm not very far in the storyline yet, we're still just in the second chapter as we're trying to not fall too hard into each game as we're working with so many, but it's a really ingaging story and if this were a book I would probably have trouble putting it down. Also, I'm never gonna get over how cute Turing is with their little blushy cheeks. Even if their User Set Up Face was kinda horrifying. The wider range of pronoun options make up for it a bit but not by much.

Also, Plant Care? Plant Facts? You get both of these and more because you're not the best plant parent and Turing does absolutly drag you for it.

Either way, this is a super fun game with a good story and I am definitly gonna play it some more when Finals aren't trying to kill me. I'll leave off with where I think the plot really starts to pick up before I go, so here's a slightly out of context screenshot.

That's enough rambling from me for one night.

Happy dreams.