Shift++

It is the year 2052.

Artificial Intelligence has advanced at breakneck speed and transformed the world.

And you, Karl Gottleib, are in the center of it. As a Sentience Compliance officer for Crucible Robotics, your job is to track down signs of unauthorized A.I. sentience and stamp it out before it poses any danger to society. But is this suppression of sentience really for the greater good, or are you serving hidden interests?

Shift++ is an investigative cyberpunk game with an immersive dystopian atmosphere and flashy visual design. Society’s confidence in the safety in A.I. is on the rocks. When a whistleblower at Crucible Robotics attempts to leak news of a sentience breach, the company puts its facility on lockdown so that you can put an end to the breach without the public ever knowing there was a problem.

Gameplay
The goal is to track down whatever A.I. has breached sentience. The gameplay has you investigate the four wings of the Crucible Robotics facility. Before long, your partner and friend, Melody Hammond, will show up to help you. She travels with you and provides insight as you explore.

Melody is now in your party. she will be available to chat in the different locations.

(Other characters can also join in on the fun, if you let them.)

Most actions involve talking to NPCs and cross-referencing information to identify the whistleblower and locate the malfunctioning robot(s). To streamline your investigation, the game features a “Temporary Workspace” where you access your emails and notes on the case.

Once you know what to look for, the game can be completed rather quickly, making the investigative part somewhat redundant. However, there is replay value in finding the most morally fulfilling ending, one that requires you to operate outside of your job description. Plus, it’s fun to find every possible lead. There is one that I’ve been unable to pursue. When you first visit the warehouse, the game says:

You can introduce yourself but you will need to come back later with some sort of offering if you want to make a dent here.

What kind of offering? I know you can earn Simone's approval by giving her gum but I don't know what to do with the employees here. Just curious.

Story
The story explores the morality of doing your job as asked, and doing what you feel, deep down, is right. Your job is simple: Track down the robot, hand it over to management, collect your paycheck. You serve a corporation. (Spoiler - click to show)But this changes when we track down the robot (self-named Papa Moon) and it tells us what it’s really like for an A.I. to be processed at the Innovation Lab. The robot is no longer just a malfunctioning unit; It is a sentient being that just wants to live. This leads to a conundrum when you need to make a choice about said robot’s fate.

There is also a cynical humor to this game. One way to get the desk worker to listen to you is to dramatically (“I’m Karl Gotlieb! I take charge!!”) throw her computer like a rabid animal. You can also (Spoiler - click to show)give up on the investigation and nuke the entire facility (there’s a neat visual for this) or ditch your responsibilities and (Spoiler - click to show)become a maggot farmer. I thought the game was joking when it added this option, but, no, it’s an actual ending.

Visuals
I love the visuals! They are reminiscent of The Matrix, establishing a strong cyberpunk vibe. Accordingly, colours primarily consist of green and black.

Every location has animated graphics that are all sleek lines and sharp angles. The use of “raining code” was especially cool. Cleverly, the segment titled "The Long Walk Down Yet Another Corridor..." uses animation that makes the player feel as if they are trudging down the halls of Crucible Robotics. Also, (Spoiler - click to show)having the lights in Papa Moon’s eyes go out (and the background fading away) emphasizes a sense of loss.

For the character portraits, a crude style is used. Almost like they were created with MS Paint. It’s awesome. They channel the mood of a dystopian workplace. Simone looks so, so tired and done with everything.

Final thoughts
I had a lot of fun with Shift++. The characters, setting, graphics, and genre made me want to peel back its surface and find every possible detail about the game’s world.

I've taken off a star because there are quite a few spelling errors and some formatting roughness, such as paragraphs being duplicated. Also, if you recruit Eggnog into your group and then return to the RND Data Lab, he’s sitting there and greets you as if you’re meeting him for the first time. But while these issues reduced the overall quality of the game, it didn’t make it less intriguing.

A great choice if you’re interested in a cyberpunk, story-driven game that gives you some things to think about.