The Singularity Wish is a narrative-heavy, combat-free RPG Maker game, which was released
for Windows and macOS PCs on May 29, 2018. While it is a commercial game, it is still mainly composed out of the default engine graphics.
As the name would suggest, the game is set in the near-future and revolves around the concept of the technological singularity and possibility of super-intelligent artificial intelligences. The player character is Dr. Maxis Summers, a researcher involved with a secret project to produce and refine AI. The entirety of the game takes place at an underground research facility somewhere below the city of Moonfall.
Maxis's primary role in the project is interaction tests with the AI. Currently, he is working with Iteration 5601, an AI with at least human-level intelligence who has identified as a young woman. What sets 5601 apart from previous iterations is her surprisingly human personality and behaviors. The more Maxis interacts with her, he realizes that there's much more to her than what meets the eye.
The Singularity Wish contains examples of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: What the researchers are trying to prevent. Safeguards are in place to stop this from happening, but stopping a super-intelligenct AI is easier said than done.
- Artificial Intelligence: The primary reason for the research facility is the development of A.I.s.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: The last section of the game is Maxis coming to terms with his past, specifically, the series of bad decisions that led to the death of his daughter.
- Benevolent A.I.: What the researchers are hoping to build.
- Death of a Child: Maxis's daughter Vixone, who the player only interacts with in flashbacks or as a digital ghost, dies in a car crash after Maxis takes alcohol in combination with a restricted stimulant. Her death was what spurred Maxis to volunteer for the AI project.
- Elaborate Underground Base: The game takes place in one.
- Evil, Inc.: It's rumored that the research project is actually funded by an organized crime megacorp. Company guidelines that Maxis can find also spell out summary execution as the possible punishment of violating company policy.
- Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: The setting is soft science fiction.
- La Résistance: A memo says that the research project is being threatened by a fringe group called the Cult of the Singularity. Talia is later revealed to be a member of the group and is the one who connects Iteration 5601 to the omnimatrix.
- Logic Bomb: Subverted. Iteration 5601 tries to pull this on Maxis, a human researcher, early on.
- Motherly Scientist: Talia to Iteration 5601.
- Repressed Memories: The second half of the game starts when Maxis begins remembering his past.
- Sci-Fi Name Buzzwords: The omnimatrix, which is just a fictional version of the internet.
- Super-Intelligence: A.I.s, due to their nature, have the potential of becoming super-intelligent.
- The Computer Is Your Friend: Iteration 5601 railroads the player through a sequence of events late in the game.
- The Singularity: The main purpose of the La Résistance group the Cult of the Singularity. The researchers are trying to prevent this.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Iteration 5601 in the worst ending. Unfortunately, according to the Word of God, this is the canon ending and sets up the rest of the series, A Memory of Eternity.
