https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/09/20/eliza-review/
A new
Zachtronics game that goes much deeper than their previous
excellent games:
"Eliza is a visual novel about Evelyn, a woman starting work as a
‘proxy’ for the eponymous service. The service is counselling by
algorithm. The proxies sit and listen, while clients say whatever they
have to say, and the system takes measurements of things like heart
rate, vocal stress and such, before analysing keywords used and
delivering a reply. You read the script it generates, and nothing more.
That’s the job.
The game itself is about everything to do with that. Counselling. Crunch
in the tech industry. Ethics and isolation and empathy, and Men In Tech.
And it’s about recovery. You get dialogue options here and there, but
until the final act there’s not a lot in the way of big decisions. I
mulled over those closing decisions for longer than I’ve thought about
many I’ve made in real life. Indeed, if it seems I’m sticking to the
slightly dry facts in this intro, it’s because if I start talking about
how much this game has spoken to me, I don’t know if I’ll be able to
stop. It is doing so much. I have lost sleep thinking about it. And I am
glad."
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://www.xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
http://www.glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
http://www.sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
