I came across Neurocracy for the first time while scrolling on Twitter earlier today – surprisingly, I have not yet been rate limited, and thank god for that because it’s given me a new hyperfixation. Neurocracy is an entirely free, augmented/alternate reality browser-based game, originally released in ten weekly episodes from July to September 2021. You play by opening up omnipedia.app. You’ll see something that looks like Wikipedia. That’s fine. Just start reading.
What you’re looking at is Omnipedia, a fictional Wikipedia successor launched in a future where China is the global superpower, AI has advanced considerably, and the world is still in the process of recovering from a pandemic of the fictional Cariappa-Muren Disease, a tuna-borne prion illness. You’ll find out immediately that Xu Shaoyong, a major investor in Omnipedia, has been assassinated. Your job is to trawl Wikipedia – sorry, Omnipedia – read everything you can, and even check revision histories in order to solve the mystery of who killed Xu. It’s a truly fascinating use of form, using an intuitive and familiar platform to drip-feed the reader information, combined with an episodic release schedule allowing the writers to modify its narrative in response to players’ theories. I’m all-in, and lucky for me, because Neurocracy is launching a rerun of the first season with new systems and stories. Neurocracy 2.049 launches on July 12.
Maybe you’re not convinced that this is quite for you, but I recommend checking out the site before you write it off. The first season of Neurocracy was lauded by critics, who praised the format, worldbuilding, and themes of disinformation and a changing Internet. It displays an incredible level of attention to detail, with a number of guest writers brought on to flesh out parts of this megacorp-supported Wikipedia, leaving every article littered with links to other pages and article previews of terms included in those pages. The tone mimics Wikipedia’s to a tee, creating a level of immersion I didn’t think a text-based game could. If you’re the kind of person who gets sucked into Wikipedia rabbit holes often, starting off googling an actor and emerging from a wiki-drunken stupor hours later halfway through reading about nuclear fission, this game is for you. Please, trust me.
I do not identify as a Wikipedia-pilled person, and I am usually perfectly content to search up what I wanted to know and set my phone down. I am, however, extremely nosy, which is why I am a journalist. When I see a loose thread, I can’t help but pull at it, unravelling the mystery until all its secrets are exposed. Neurocracy inspires that same feeling in me, the feeling of picking up a clue or something that sounds weird and chasing it down until I figure out what it’s hiding. For fans of mystery, interactive fiction, and Wikipedia, get on the Discord later this month and play Neurocracy.