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Preview: Code 7 – Text Adventure Mixes Cyberpunk with Space Horror

Code 7, gameplay screen

Test Adventure

The first offering from Cologne-based developers Retra Games, Code 7 is the two-man team’s updated take on the classic text adventure formula. They’re currently seeking approval through Steam Greenlight, but a prologue featuring an hour or so of gameplay is available now as a free download directly from the official website (it’s technically a “pay what you want” download, so feel free to toss a few bucks to the developers if you want to support the project). Should they receive enough votes, an additional five episodes are planned.

Code 7, gameplay screen
Code 7 screenshot courtesy of official website

In Space, Androids Can Hear You Scream…

What the developers have put together so far is pretty impressive. In addition to text elements, it’s got voice acting, visual cues and plenty of creepy sound effects to better create the atmosphere of an abandoned colony on a distant planet. Putting you in the position of a computer hacker working as part of a two-person infiltration team, the game opens with the two of you trapped in different parts of the colony station, so you’ll have to hack into its computer system to help guide your partner through increasingly disturbing scenes of murdered scientists and decrepit robotics.

Multiple choice elements and word prediction make dealing with the text parser a little smoother than the text adventures of yore, and some password-hacking puzzles with swirling letters, though not as intuitive as they could be, add additional elements. Some of the game’s puzzles can be a bit confusing and can lead to the sudden death of your partner, but multiple save points keep things from getting too frustrating, and hopefully these are things that will continue to be streamlined as work on Code 7 continues. What’s in place now is already quite promising and is sure to appeal to fans of classic text adventures as well as hopefully introducing a new generation to the genre.

Code 7 – Official Site

Vote for Code 7 on Steam Greenlight

Watch the trailer for Code 7 below: