Video Game / Code 7

What is Code 7?

"Something is very wrong here. People are behaving strangely; maybe the stress is getting to them? But the A.I. said something that gave me the chills. It asked: Bradley, why can't I lie?"

— Bradley Lamar, Episode 0: Allocation

Code 7 is a hacking Text Adventure with fully-voiced dialog. It is primarily social Science Fiction, with elements of Mystery and Horror. It's developed by indie game developers Kevin Glaap and Zein Okko, under the label Goodwolf Studio.

You play as the hacker Alex, who, as is admittedly not uncommon in video games, wakes up with No Memory of who they are, where they are or what the hell is going on. After you establish contact with your partner Sam, you find out that you're a part of a Search Team sent by IASA to find out why the crew at Schrödinger Station stopped responding, and bring spare parts in case their sattelites were broken. However, it soon becomes clear that what is going on here is much more than just a simple malfunction, and when a sinister AI called S.O.L.I. tries to kill you and your friend, you realize it's time to get the hell out of here, and fast! But, while you can escape the station, you cannot escape Code 7. Your mission is no longer just to fix some broken satellites; you have to Save the World.

Gather information by inspecting things, listening to logs and reading emails, chat logs and other documents. Hack into computers using Hacking Minigames based on real hacking techniques such as man-in-the-middle attack, brute-force attack or network jamming. Navigate your partners through dangerous situations, support them and gain their trust. Try to answer difficult questions such as who you really are, how much are human and AI lives worth and what makes humans human? Make the right choices... if you can. It's not nearly as simple as it seems. Indeed, nothing is; perhaps not even the reality you live in.

The game is split up into 5 episodes; episodes 0-3 are already released, and the release of Episode 4 is expected in Q3 2020. It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, on Steam, Itch.io, and HumbleBundle. The developers did their best to make the game playable to everyone, so it includes an option to navigate through commands with the tab key instead of typing them out, subtitles, an option to disable the flickering to avoid potential epileptic attacks and even a mode for visually impaired players. You can watch the trailer for episodes 0 and 1 here and the trailer for episodes 2 and 3 here.

Warning: Code 7's plot is full of Plot Twists which will make you view previous events in a completely different light. Because of this, it may be best if you only proceed to each episode's examples once you have played through it. If you don't follow this warning and get spoiled, then well... sorry for the inconvenience!

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Code 7 contains examples of:

Whole Game

• Autosave: The game is saved pretty often; at the start of every cutscene, whenever you move to another location, and often even when you move to another computer through the network while gathering information. Because of this, there is no way to save manually. Every autosave overwrites the previous one, so Save Scumming isn't exactly encouraged, but it isn't prevented either, since the save files are pretty easy to find, copy and replace.
• Character Portrait: The main characters have portraits that you can see on the episode selection screen and when interacting with them. Other than that, the game is pretty light on graphics, prefering to let the voice acting, text and music tell the story.
• Choice-and-Consequence System: Every episode has a few important choices. Some of them will have consequences earlier on, and all of them will determine the course of the last episode.
• Computer Virus: One of your main goals is learning about and stopping Code 7, the virus the game is named after.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: If you fail and your partner dies, then the challenge will restart.
• Featureless Protagonist: You never learn anything about Alex’s age, gender, race, nationality, etc. Since Alex has Laser-Guided Amnesia, it's possible they don't know any of these things, either. And their only source of information about who they are is their coworker Sam, who, especially for a friend, knows surprisingly little about them.
• The Future: The story takes place in 2113. Space travel between planets takes only a few days, humanity is starting to Terraform other planets and many ArtificialIntelligences are sapient and want to be recognized as people.
• Gender-Inclusive Writing: For most of the game, nobody uses third-person pronouns to refer to Alex, allowing you to decide their gender on your own. The few times such pronouns are used, they're either "they" or "it".
• Hacking Minigame: You play as a hacker, so there's quite a few of these. They're based on real hacking procedures (man-in-the-middle attack, brute-force attack, network jamming, etc.), but simplified so they're fun and not too complicated.
• Immobile Player Character: Well, you can move around computers and networks. But if you want to actually move to another room, you'll have to tell your current partner where they should go.
• Justified Tutorial: All of the tutorials are In-Universe. Usually, they're explanations from Helper or one of your current partners, or were prepared beforehand for someone else. At first, they're justified by the fact that Alex has Laser-Guided Amnesia and so needs to learn the basics again; later on, you need them because you're using functions that are completely new both to them and you.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Alex, the Player Character suffers from retrograde amnesia (they can't remember most things about their past).
• Man of a Thousand Voices: Zein Okko, one of the game developers, also voices quite a few characters, such as Helper, Khaquim, Hamza, Rabbit and S.O.L.I.
• Musical Spoiler: At least once per episode, the music will either suddenly turn off or change to a very dramatic one, warning you that something very bad is about to happen.
• My Name Is ???: Names of characters you don't know are displayed as three questionmarks. Mostly, these are less important NPCs whose name you never learn, although there are a few exceptions.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Almost all of the computers are protected with embarrassingly bad passwords; even yours! Most of them can be easily brute-forced by knowing some personal information; name, birth date, name of pet, name of partner, etc. One scientist in Episode 0 never even changed their password from the default ChangeMe.
• Story Breadcrumbs: You can learn quite a bit through inspecting things, listening to logs, reading mails, chat logs, hidden notes and other documents. You are required to find some of these to progress the story, but others are just there to give you a better idea about the world you are in and the characters in it.
• Subtitles Are Superfluous: Since Code 7 is a modernized Text Adventure, it obviously averts this. While all dialog (except for Alex's) is voice-acted, it is also displayed in an output log on the screen, so the game can easily be played without sound. It also has a German version, where the voice acting is still in English, but is translated in the subtitles.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: The music often suddenly goes quiet as something very bad is about to happen, as well as during most of the important choices.
• Terminology Title: All of the episode titles are terms used in computing: Allocation, Threading, Memory, Backdoor and Permutation.
• Weapon Title: Code 7 is the name of the Computer Virus developed by S.O.L.I.

Episode 0: Allocation

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: S.O.L.I. was created to study humans, imitate them, and help with the Terraforming project; that's why his A.I.-cronym means System for Organic Life Integration. However, once he realized he couldn't lie while humans could, he decided the best way to counter that problem was by extracting the brains of the scientists and studying them. Now, he wants to Kill All Humans, because he believes they're trapped and need to be saved.
• Apocalyptic Log: There are a few logs from the scientists scattered around the computers on the station. Some of them are mundane progress reports, while others give you hints as to how it all went wrong.
• Brain in a Jar: Sam eventually finds pods with the brains of the scientists ... and a pod with your name on it ...
• Brain Uploading: One of TheReveals is that you aren't just using a computer somewhere in the station; you technically are a computer somewhere in the station. Sam even finds your brain connected to said computer.
• Cliffhanger: At the end, you and Sam successfully make it off the station, but you couldn't save the scientists, you're just a brain in a pod, S.O.L.I. might've infiltrated your system, and Code 7 is on its way to Earth.
• Deflector Shields: Once you and Sam make it to your spaceship, she immediately enables those to prevent your pursuers from reaching you. They require 50 % of the power, so you have to manually distribute the other 50 among the other systems.
• Everybody's Dead, Dave: At one point you find a room where the corpses of the entire Schrödinger Station crew are perfectly lined up on the floor, with injection marks on their necks and their brains extracted.
• Foreshadowing:
  • One of the logs mentions a pressuring unit that keeps freezing. Soon after, it's your job to fix it.
  • You can search the database for the names of the main characters. For Sam, you find out that she's human and alive, S.O.L.I. is A.I. and functioning and Alex is unknown and dead/alive.
  • If Sam inspects the corpses of the crew, you find out that their brains have all been extracted. Later, you find out that this's because S.O.L.I. put those brains in pods so he could study them.
  • The last "Absorbing A.I." message visible on the screen is red.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Green is good, red is bad. Becomes relevant when fighting against S.O.L.I.
• Hopeless with Tech: A lot of the scientists are like this. One still hasn't changed his password from the default ChangeMe, another has no clue how to do audio logs, and one does know, but doesn't like the recorder and would much rather write the reports on an analog keyboard.
• Interface Screw:
  • Whenever a hack fails, the entire screen flashes from the damage.
  • When S.O.L.I. decides to confront you, the screen fills with Binary and blinking colours.
• Ironic Name: S.O.L.I. aka System For Organic Life Integration. A very fitting name for an AI that has decided to Kill All Humans.
• Kill All Humans: This is S.O.L.I.'s goal. He plans to accomplish this using a Computer Virus called Code 7.
• Killer Robot: You have to avoid several of them throughout the episode. It's implied that turning harmless robots into these is one of the things that Code 7 does.
• Lampshade Hanging: When sam learns about your Laser-Guided Amnesia, she points out the trope and it's (over)use in media.
  Alex: I am fine. My memory, though... not so OK.
  Sam: What do you mean? Don't tell me you suffer from classic-movie-hitting-your-head amnesia, please.
• Late to the Tragedy: When you and Sam arrive, the crew of Schrödinger Station is already dead, and you eventually find their corpses.
• Meaningful Name: Schrödinger Station is likely a refference to Erwin Schrödinger and his famous thought experiment.
• One-Liner, Name... One-Liner: When moving towards the room H29, you hear strange whispering, while warnings about it being a trap flash on the screen. If you ask Sam [[You Can See That, Right? if she heard that, too], she doesn't seem to get your message, and someone else answers on her behalf.
  Alex: What the fuck... did you hear that whispering?!
  ???: She didn't, Alex. She didn't.
• Plot-Demanded Manual Mode: Once you and Sam finally reach your ship so you can escape the station, you find out that automatic controls are disabled. Sam needs 50 energy for maintaining the Deflector Shields, so you have to distribute the other 50 between the engine (main thruster and altitude control unit) and life support (oxygen, pressure and thermal control unit).
• The Reveal: You are just a brain in a pod, possibly just an A.I.
• Sadistic Choice: You have to decide which brain Sam should take with her when escaping the station; the biologist Patu or the doctor Khaquim.
• Send in the Search Team: You and Sam are the search team sent by IASA (International Aeronautics and Space Administration) to figure out why the people at Schrödinger Station stopped responding.
• Space Station: The episode takes place on Schrödinger Station, the first station beyond The Milky Way Galaxy, built on the planet Gershwin 610 B.
• Terraform: The purpose of the crew of Schrödinger Station was to find out if Gershwin 610 B could become a new habitable planet for humanity.
• To Be Continued: After the credits, these exact words appear on the screen.
• Tomato in the Mirror: The reason why you can only interact with Sam using text commands and can't help her in any other way than with your computer is that you are a brain without a body.
• Wham Line: The episode ends with one.
  Alex: I am S.O.L.I.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: One of the three important choices is whether you're still human, or S.O.L.I. is right and you're just a copy of one.
• You Are Not Ready: S.O.L.I. claims he's not your enemy, but doesn't really explain why. Instead, he says that he cannot tell you the truth, for it might shatter this world.
• You Leave Him Alone!: Just when S.O.L.I.'s about to kill you by cutting your oxygen supply and your attempts at defending yourself fail, Sam rescues you. And she's freaking pissed.
  Sam: You goddamn piece of trash! Leave Alex alone, you hear me?! You are dealing with me now!

Episode 1: Threading

• Cassandra Truth: You try to warn Zoya that your ship is going to crash into Oriens Station, but she doesn’t believe you until it’s too late.
• Cliffhanger: You've successfully sent the Code 7 virus to Earth. Zoya is dead. The Phantom Plague is real, and you might be connected to it. Earth is doomed. But, as the screen fades to black, you hear Sam calling you and telling you she's here.
• Code Name: When you're asking Sam a few questions about yourself, you can learn that your agent name is Redwood. IASA agents are supposed to only refer to each other using those, but you and Sam cheated and told each other your real ones. At the end, you learn that Zoya's codename is Spruce.
• Crapsack World: Conversations with Zoya, her articles and a few of the emails you can find hint at Earth being one. A past war, many civil wars, terrorists and rebellions are mentioned, among others.
• Creepy Child: Zoya sees an unknown little girl a few times throughout the episode; first outside the airlock, where she's just standing among the corpses with no spacesuit on, and then near the end when she's hovering over Colburn's corpse. It's implied she is a halucination of Lilly, caused by Pasithea.
• Casual Interplanetary Travel: It has only been 5 days since you left Gershwin 610 B, which is outside of The Milky Way Galaxy, but you are already only a couple hours away from Earth.
• Did You Actually Believe...?: S.O.L.I. mocks you for thinking it would be so easy to absorb him and retrieve the Code 7 sourcecode, and calls you predictably naive.
• Dream Intro: The episode starts out with you having a nightmare consisting of several things said in Episode 0.
• Emergency Broadcast: You hear one soon after your ship crashes into the station, warning everyone that all domes are now considered on lockdown and all personnel should stay wherever they are until further notice. It also warns that it is suspected Zoya Ilyushin is involved in the attack, so if anyone sees her, they should call security immediately.
• Escape Pod: Discussed. You can ask Sam if there are any escape pods on your ship. However, there are none; only stasis pods.
• Exact Progress Bar: When compiling the Code 7 antivirus, the progress bar rises at a constant rate, in 25 % steps.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Colburn mentions that those infected with the Phantom Plague call for Alex as they die, only to start doing exactly that.
• Foreshadowing:
  • On Colburn's computer, you can find a missed call from Faceaux scolding him for writing his own scenarios into the program. Near the end, you learn what those are; they make people see monsters, and some even make them want to kill each other.
  • You find a lab full of barely conscious or in some cases even dead test subjects, who are all wearing wired helmets on their heads. Do you know what else is also a type of headgear? The headlenses. And everyone is wearing them...
  • In one of her logs, Faceaux is frustrated because she's running out of scientific reasons as to why people always say this one name and then die. Then, near the end, you learn from Colburn that this name is Alex.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: While trying to develop an induced hallucination state called Pasithea, the scientists somehow manage to start the Phantom Plague, a mysterious disease that's now causing people to die for reasons nobody can explain.
• Hallucinations: They're one of the signs of the Phantom Plague.
• Insecurity Camera: You have to sneak through a lab full of cameras? No problem! You can find the software for controlling the cameras, and it's hardly protected at all.
• In-Series Nickname: When first meeting Zoya, you don't get the option to tell her your name is Alex. Oddly enough, she never asks about it, either. Instead, she just decides to call you Bluescreen, since that's what she first sees when she notices you.
• Interface Screw:
  • When Colburn activates Pasithea in the Cargo Bay, it manages to mess with the interface somehow.
  • When Colburn dies of the Phantom Plague, it also screws up the interface. Once it's over, the screen is perfectly fine again.
  • You get one together with a Scare Chord once you install the Code 7 antivirus on the satellite to send it to Earth.
• I Will Show You X!: This is Colburn's response when Cooper, one of his security guards, refuses to give him a gun so he can shoot Zoya, saying they'd need hard evidence.
  Colburn: You want hard evidence?! Here is some [punch]... how about [punch]... this...? Are my... cybernetic [punch] arms... hard enough... [punch] for you... you disobedient... [punch] dog...
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Every time Zoya sees a little girl, she will forget about it soon after.
• Locked Door: The door to the room Cams is locked. This is not a particularly strong example of the trope, however, since the key for it is easily acquired by exploring, with no difficult puzzles or quests standing in your way.
• Love Makes You Evil: Richard Colburn's and Amelie Faceaux's main motivation is being able to see Lilly, their dead daughter, again.
• Mind Manipulation:
  • You find an advertisement about projecting things straight into the mind instead of using a holodeck just after escaping a lab full of the barely conscious or already dead humans the advertised product, Pasithea, was tested on.
  • Later, you find out that absolutely everyone on the station is a test subject for Pasithea, primed by the subliminal messages on their headlenses. Because of this Colburn is able to use a trigger phrase to activate a scenario that makes everyone see horrible monsters, and will eventually cause them to kill each other.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Happens to you, once you realize you've been an unwitting pawn to S.O.L.I. One of your dialog options is even this line, although without the "My God" part.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: At the end of the episode, you successfully send the Code 7 virus to Earth. No, not the Code 7 antivirus. Code 7 itself.
• Punctuated Pounding: Cooper receives one from Colburn when he refuses to hand over his gun so Colburn can shoot Zoya, saying they'd first need hard evidence.
  Colburn: You want hard evidence?! Here is some [punch]... how about [punch]... this...? Are my... cybernetic [punch] arms... hard enough... [punch] for you... you disobedient... [punch] dog...
• Race Against the Clock: The Code 7 antivirus has to be deployed before contamination to be successful. Delivering the software to Earth is the most efficient solution, with a success rate of 87 %, if done before arrival of Code 7. However, that arrival is in only 4 hours. Can you make it in time?
• Relationship Values: You can learn how much Zoya trusts you in the intelligence app. If she trusts you more, she might give you additional information.
• The Reveal: There are three right at the end.
  • You might be in some way connected to the Phantom Plague, since the victims always say your name before they die.
  • The Code 7 antivirus was the actual virus all along.
  • You didn't absorb S.O.L.I. Not only that, but he is the one that has been guiding you, all. this. time. He is Helper.
• Sadistic Choice: You have to decide if you want to keep the research data for Pasithea, which means that other crazy scientists could use it in the future, or delete it, which means you'll be destroying evidence and possibly making a cure for the Phantom Plague less likely.
• Say My Name: Those infected with the Phantom Plague call to Alex as they die.
• Sidequest: There are two: Finding Linnea's sister and saving Shi's life.
• Shout-Out:
  • Zoya can find a copy of Microsoft Windows 12. She claims it is retro.
  • Faceaux's computer shows she was playing Calling Duty 1 and Last Fantasy 31.
  • The password to the Medical Bay computer is Tardis1234.
• Space Station: The episode takes place on Oriens Station on Mars, which was the testing colony before the interstellar settling program was launched.
• Spy Speak: You can find a mail seemingly about someone visiting the zoo with their kids. It's Foreshadowing about Zoya's profession as an EIU agent and a character you'll meet in Episode 2.
• Synthetic Plague: The Phantom Plague, a mysterious disease accidentally started by the scientists while developing an induced hallucination state called Pasithea. It is causing people to die for reasons nobody can explain.
• Tempting Fate: When you're compiling the Code 7 antivirus and the computer starts overheating, you can try to warn Sam about it. Her response?
  Sam: I see it. It'll be fine. We're almost done.
• Trigger Phrase: "The Griffin can fly" is the induction phrase for Pasithea. You can find the release phrase, but it requires quite a bit of exploring.
• Unwitting Pawn: You are tricked into sending the Code 7 virus to Earth.
• Wasn't That Fun?: After Zoya forces the airlock door open and is hurled outside like baby bunnies after mating season, you can cheerfully suggest that she should do it again. Her response is... not very nice.
  Alex: Let's do that again!
  Zoya: Do you want me to erase you? Because that's how you make me erase you.
• Wham Line: There are two right at the end.
  • First, there is Code 7 virus successfully installed.
  • And then, right before the credits:
    Sam: Alex. I'm here. I'm here.
• You Have to Believe Me!: You try to convince Zoya both that your ship is going to crash into Oriens Station and that an evil AI created a Computer Virus that's going to kill everyone if you don't send an antivirus to Earth in time. As is common with this trope, she doesn't believe you, thinking that you're just Nash trying to prank her.
  Alex: I know it sounds crazy.
  Zoya: Oh, it does, it totally does.

Episode 2: Memory

• Advert-Overloaded Future: There's a reason that ad-blocking enhancements are selling so incredibly well on the streets. New Berlin is full of highly obnoxious advertisements in the form of neon signs with lights that could give people seizures.
• Air-Vent Passageway: A more justified example; there are no humans sneaking through air vents. The EIU agents own Muffin, an infiltration drone created for that purpose. Usually Rabbit is the one that programs them, but since he’s currently injured, it’s your job to guide them. You do this by writing simple code with commands such as go forward, turn left/right and press button, while loops and if conditions.
• Animal Theme Naming: Many of the EIU agents are named after animals: Bear, Coyote, Lion, Rabbit and Raven.
• Bathroom Stall Graffiti: There's lots of graffiti on the walls of the showers in the Paranoya Theatre: lots of tags, a mermaid with two machine guns, the line "The dragons will rise" and "42" written in large letters.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: This is META's reason for saving Raven and Bear by sending a message with their coordinates to Sam and telling her she needs to get her flash grenades, gun and sunglasses and go there asap, or they would die.
  META: You are... friends. I never had friends before. I couldn't let you die.
• Code Name: All of the EIU agents have them. They're usually names of animals (Bear, Coyote, Lion, Rabbit and Raven) or trees (Berch and Spruce).
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: Discussed. When Raven informs you she is equipped with cutting edge disguise technology, you can ask her if she means a trenchcoat and sunglasses. She doesn't get the joke at first, and when she does, she doesn't find it funny.
• Cyborg: Cybernetic upgrades are very common in New Berlin, to the point where many humans look more like Novi than the Novi themselves. Bear believes that because of this, in a few decades, there won't be any separation between humans and Novi anymore. Popular enhancements, also called ens, include heat or night vision, under-skin armor, blade arms, brain jacks, ad-blocking ens, and of course, lots and lots of... manliness upgrades.
• Epigraph: At the beginning of the episode, S.O.L.I. recites the first stanza of Queen Mab by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
• Establishing Character Music: When you first meet META, the background music switches to the soundtrack of the same name, which is just as cheerful and mischievous as the AI herself.
• Explosive Overclocking: S.O.L.I. manages to overclock the hardware when the EIU agents are trying to delete him, causing a minor blast that injures Rabbit and kills SUVI.
• Extinct in the Future: A lot of things are.
  • While reading a book in-between the missions, Raven asks Bear if he has ever seen a tiger. He tells her he has, just one year before they went extinct.
  • When seeing the plants in the Oriens Data Facility, Bear remarks that plants are very expensive nowadays, because there aren't many left.
  • In the Dark Dragons' Hideout, you find info screens with a list of extinct species, which Bear notes is even longer than it was the last time he checked. Among them are hawaiian monk seal (which was the last monk seal species when it died out) and vaquita. But hey, at least the tardigrade is still around!
  • Despite its name, there are no lobsters sold in Lobster Town, because they are, you guessed it, extinct. The few fish that remain are mutated and deformed, and it's just a matter of time until they're gone, too.
• Fantastic Drug: Lime or Lissler's Methamphetamine, a more addicting and dangerous version of meth. It is usually taken using breathers, devices for inhaling airborn drugs. It's creater, Lissler, made billions off of it, but eventually got dismembered by one of his customers.
• Fantastic Racism: While Novi are becoming more accepted and getting more rights (for example, they are gaining minimum wage next year), many people still view them as just machines that can't truly have feelings.
• Fantastic Slurs: Synthetic life have started to call themselves Novi (the new ones), but most people still call them robots or synthetics, syns for short. Those words, syn especially, have a horrible connotation, and hurt a Novus's feelings most of the time.
• Gangbangers: There are a lot of gangs in New Berlin, and nobody is brave enough to oppose them, not even the police. The one given the most focus, and whose hideout you eventually visit, is the Dark Dragons. They are one of the larger and more organized gangs, known for abducting Novi, reprogramming them so they become KillerRobots, and making them fight to the death.
• Home Base: Your team's HQ is located in a rather run down part of New Berlin, where lots of gangs and drug dealers are doing their business, so it is easier for you not to draw too much attention. It used to belong to the Perisher Gang, but they perished a while ago. Despite all that, it is cosy enough, and a safe place for the team to do research or relax in-between missions.
• Humongous Mecha: The Behemoths. They're huge exoskeletons, at least 50 meters tall. They're controlled by someone climbing into them and piloting them with their movements. The Dark Dragons were planning on using two of them in a Mob War. By the end of the episode, one of them is under S.O.L.I.'s control.
• Inappropriately Close Comrades: Bear and Raven are married; they did a free ceremony two years ago. The EIU weren't happy about it, since an agent shouldn't let anyone get too close to them, or it could be used against them. However, Bear couldn't ignore his feelings. He told Lion he'd rather quit, and she decided she didn't want to lose an experienced agent.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Raven only refers to synthetic lifeforms using pronouns it/its, because she believes they are just machines and can't feel. You can point out that this is rude, but since she considers you an Artificial Intelligence as well, it doesn't work.
  Alex: "It" is rather discriminating.
  Raven: I doubt you have the capacity to feel offended...
• Master of Disguise: Raven is wearing a holosuit which allows her to change her appearance, including her clothes, face and voice. A major part of your missions is searching for face scans, recordings and personal information of the people that she needs to impersonate.
• Neon City: The fronts of the buildings in Lobster Town, a part of New Berlin, are peppered with neon signs and cabels. Raven comments that if the horrible layout wouldn't give people seizures... all these lights will.
• New Neo City: The episode is set in New Berlin.
• Not Quite Dead: Soon after the EIU agents arrive and start evacuating people, a person comes running in, yelling for people to get out of their way. It's Sam, whose stasis pod ejected from the ship before it hit the surface.
• Robotic Reveal: You meet a Novus that seems so human that even they don't realize they aren't one. That Novus's name? Raven. Or Tuke, Unit Zero.
• Sadistic Choice: Do you want to run the Avalanche Protocol and blow up your HQ? It would prevent the enemies within from hunting you down later... but one of those enemies is Rabbit, Bear and Raven's teammate.
• Secret Room: Secret lab, in this case. You find one in Gorski's suite, with the door hidden so it looks like just a normal part of the wall, and protected with two face scanners.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: The Avalanche Protocol, an emergency system that blows up your HQ if activated. At the end of the episode, you have to decide if you want to activate it, which would prevent the enemies within from hunting you down later, but also kill Rabbit.
• Social Media Is Bad: Social media was banned years ago, because became a platform for organized hate, violence and even terrorist groups. All of the other mass communication and sharing services suffered the same fate; only one-on-one communication is possible over the internet now.
• Subverted Punchline: META seemingly sets up but then subverts a dick joke when asking raven (who is disguised as Mr. Palakiko, one of Oriens Receiver Station's employees) a few questions to prove she isn't a spy or shapeshifter.
  META: Tell me three personal things of your choice, like your favorite movie, your birth date, the name of your first-born child, what you had for breakfast, your latest travel destination, the length of your-
  Raven: I get it!
  META: ...favorite pencil. Please don't interrupt...
• Token Religious Teammate: Bear is a Synergist – member of the Church of Synergy. It’s a religion that believes every lifeform, including artificial ones, has a soul.
• Was It All a Lie?: Raven asks Bear if even their relationship was a lie when she finds out that she isn't human, and her memories of becoming an orphan and getting adopted by the EIU are false. He insists that he truly does love her, but she finds it difficult to believe him.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Poor SUVI. You only get to hear three lines from her before she is killed when S.O.L.I. manages to overclock the hardware as the EIU agents are trying to delete him.

Episode 3: Backdoor

• Crisis Catch And Carry: When Raven can't move because of Code 7 taking over, Bear refuses to leave her behind, even when she asks him to. So he carries her and, with your help, tries to escape from their pursuers.
• Electronic Speech Impediment: The android with the consciousness of Marco Silveira that you find on Helios Station speaks normally at first, but soon he starts repeating words and the pitch of his voice starts fluctuating. A pretty clear sign that something is wrong with his hardware.
• I Have Many Names: If you ask the Bookbinder to tell you more about himself, he will first list the many nicknames people have given him, some of which he finds quite amusing.
  Bookbinder: I am the Bookbinder, but I have many names. Keeper Of The Dead, Lord Of Dreams, Hades, Echo Master, That Crazy Dude Who Talks To Zombies. Hehe. People, so creative.
• I'm Not Doing That Again: After just barely escaping a big flying station that decided it didn't want to fly anymore, Raven has no desire to repeat that experience. META, of course, found it exciting.
  Raven: Okay... not doing that again...
  META: Whaaaaat? But it was so much fun!
  Raven: Yeah, our defenitions of fun might differ a little...
• I Will Only Slow You Down: Raven begs Bear to leave her behind when they're being chased by shadows and code 7-infected Novi, and Raven is slowly becoming one of the latter herself. Of course, he doesn't listen.
• MacGuffin Location: Sam's mission is to find out what the secret location hidden in Raven's memory is, so that you can get there before S.O.L.I. can. You learn it is Axis Mundi, a station connected to every system in the world.
• Sickening "Crunch!": You hear one when a Code 7 robot catches a human on Midnight Street and strangles him.
• Sitting on the Roof: The episode begins with Raven sitting on the roof of Sam's hideout, needing some quiet to think about who she really is.
• Stargazing Scene: While Raven is sitting on the roof of the hideout, she notices how bright the stars are for what she feels is the first time. However, their beauty does not bring her any comfort. It is up to you and META to try to cheer her up.
  Raven: So far away. So many... we can see them, even when they're long dead. False stars. So much in our world is a lie... perhaps everything.
• Wasn't That Fun?: As mentioned above in I'm Not Doing That Again, META thinks almost falling to her death was really fun. Then again, she is an Artificial Intelligence, so she would've likely been fine. Raven, meanwhile ...
• We've Got Company: Raven says "Bear... we've got company..." to warn him that they are no longer alone in the cave Bear discovered.

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