The Turing Test
The Turing Test is a first person puzzle game similar to the Portal series. But unlike Portal, in this one you use power sources to open doors and activate elevators . Of course, it would get boring pretty quick if it were only that. There is more in this game, much more in my opinion.
Eva Turing, the protagonist of The Turing Test , is ‘hibernating’ on a space station revolving around Europa , one of Jupiter’s moons. And an AI called T.O.M wakes her. It tells her that it wants her to do some checks on the base on Europa. Since this is her job as the engineer onboard, she lands on the base to do checkups with T.O.M observing her.
Getting Philosophical
During her visit to their research base on Europa, Eva and T.O.M talks about various things, about life , consciousness and morality . Without any spoilers, the base was changed and designed in such a way that it would require some sort of creative intelligence to navigate through, hence the name The Turing Test . So, T.O.M was probably unable to solve it itself.
Throughout the game, you as the player unravel the mystery of what happened while you were snoozing away on the space station. It is an intriguing story actually. As I have said, there won’t be any spoilers. So, I can only say that while playing this game, you should open your eyes and ears and go through every possible item you can find on the base. Whether it’s an interactable item, audio log, diary or composition of static meshes .
Quality of Assets
The visuals and audio elements are good. Especially voice acting. That’s an amazing part of the game and if it were not of high quality, I don’t think I would finish this game. Fortunately, it was really successful. And this voice acting itself carries a huge portion of the game load on its back. Because however the lighting was good in this game, music was repetitive . There are great scores in The Turing Test. Just check it out yourself here. However, in some parts of the game the certain type of piece in that area just loops back. And it gets really repetitive. Even some of the songs resemble each other. So, while I was reading logs and diaries, I had to turn the volume down in order not to get irritated.
With that said, I am glad that I have played this game. The topic and the message is well crafted and integrated with the game’s environment. Plus, it made me think about the philosophical items which T.O.M brought on the table. And this reflective and abstact approach is what makes The Turing Test a unique game.
Gameplay Loop
You can easily see what the main gameplay loop of The Turing Test is. You enter a room, talk with T.O.M, solve the puzzle and exit the room. This is it. As basic as gameplay mechanics goes, I think it is a polished one. They went with improving on what they have in hand, instead of aimlessly adding more mechanics. There are some uncoupled elements between art and mechanics, such as there is no slowed down walking animation, but these are minor hickups which takes little value out of the game. So, I can easily say that if you like solving puzzles while discussing philosophical topics with an AI, play The Turing Test .
This post is from my website. https://monthlygamers.club/2020/06/the-turing-test/29/