NEUROCRACY 2.049
A downloadable game for Windows and macOS
Solve a murder in the future
by diving into its Wikipedia
Have you ever lost yourself in a wiki rabbit hole? Imagine doing that for the Wikipedia of the year 2049. This is Neurocracy, an interactive narrative experience that offers an anthology of compelling sci-fi stories connected across an online encyclopedia. It is both a crowdsourced alternate reality game and an epistolary hypertext novel, opening with a high-profile assassination that you must investigate.
Visionary Sci-Fi
Neurocracy builds a speculative world directly on top of our own, exploring the fascinating and terrifying car crash of technology and humanity. The diverse articles on Omnipedia depict an all-too-near future where networked brain implants are as commonplace as smartphones, and equally suited to mass surveillance. In this neurometric panopticon, your thoughts can betray you, but there are ways around that.
Wiki-Based Mystery
The story of Neurocracy is episodic and unfolds across ten consecutive days in the year 2049, starting on October 1st. Each episode represents a snapshot of a single day, with new articles added and existing ones updated to simulate bouts of frantic editing that reflect the global fallout of the assassination. Each article offers a unique narrative thread to follow, detailing a person, organisation, technology, or event relevant to the story and themes of Neurocracy.
Player Manipulation Interaction
Neurocracy offers an array of tools and resources to empower your investigation: a community forum (shaped like Talk Pages) to discuss clues and theories, and a dynamic conspiracy board that draws information directly from Omnipedia. Using these tools enables you to leverage your collective imaginations and play an active role in building the world of Neurocracy.
Reception
"Ambitious, confident writing | part experimental game, part murder-mystery novella, part postmodern exploration of how we take in stories"
-- The Guardian
"A brilliant futurist mystery of truth and technology | absolutely confident in the richly detailed and subtle world they're constructing"
-- Eurogamer
"A compelling exercise in collaborative, online sleuthing | perfectly nails the feeling of losing yourself in a Wikipedia rabbit hole"
-- Waypoint
"A multifaceted mystery that cries out for a Pepe Silvia conspiracy board | the project has cultivated a tight-knit community that eagerly shares theories"
-- The Verge
Notes
Neurocracy’s ten weekly episodes were first released in 2021 to critical acclaim. In the summer of 2023, we organised an updated ten-episode run with new stories and systems called 🌐 Neurocracy 2.049 🌐
When you purchase a copy of Neurocracy 2.049, you're getting an app that functions as both a custom interface to browse Omnipedia and a tool for making conspiracy boards. Omnipedia remains freely accessible as a website on any browser, but using the app enables you to directly feed all of Omnipedia's content into your conspiracy board.
Disclaimer: the app is designed specifically to browse the Omnipedia website. We cannot guarantee its safety when using it to browse other sites!
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $12 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
Comments
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This shot right to the top of my go-to Itch recommendations. The commitment to the unheightened, restrained language of a wiki makes for some truly incredible browser-based detective worldbuilding. Love that self-directed feeling of frantically flipping back-and-fourth through contradictory edits
Hi! I'm on linux and the game doesn't launch, and when I'm trying to launch it via a terminal I get this error:
Also the url in the error code redirects to a 404 page.
Do you have a fix for this problem? I'd really like to play this game but right now I cannot. Thanks.
Hi! Thank you so much for sending that detailed bug report. I’ll be looking into it for the next Linux build of the app.
Another vote for the same problem. I’m on Debian 12.
hello! Just learned about the game today, and bought a copy. Now that all of the episodes are out, I am a bit confused as to how I, a new player, am to go through the game. I have the browser tool, and assume the starter notes on Pipeline are my initial guide. I am just curious how I will know when to start the next episode, or is it all just one long flowing narrative of sorts? Am I over thinking it all? Any help, guidance is appreciated. Thanks!
Hello! Thank you so much for your purchase ^_^
The Pipeline starter notes are indeed a suggestion for what mysteries to pursue in the world of 2049. As for knowing when an episode is complete, that's really up to your own judgment. Each episode comes with a new set of articles and edits to old ones, so you can browse Omnipedia in such a way that you check all available updates per episode and then click through to the next one. In the end though, there's no right way to dive into Neurocracy 2.049, you can also click Random article and see if that takes you somewhere interesting >_>
Hi there! I'm CJ—I'm working on a master list of interface drama and would like to include your game as an interface drama. I've been reaching out to devs of the game to confirm that I have accurate tagging.
Right now, the tags on Neurocracy are:
- mystery
I was thinking of perhaps adding "in-browser" as a tag, though the game is half in-browser, half-downloadable.
What do you think?
Hi! Thank you for adding Neurocracy to your list. The tags mystery and in-browser, make sense cause Omnipedia is always viewed in an internet browser. Our downloadable tool is a custom browser with added functionality. Unlike most of the games on your list, Neurocracy has a strong emphasis on players chatting together, sharing discoveries and theories. Perhaps a tag like community-driven could reflect that?
Thank you for your response. Your game is really unique. I had only explored the Omnipedia and the board aspect, but upon closer inspection, I see the feature where people can upload their boards.
Great tag idea. I'll add in-browser and community-driven to the entry.
This is so cool! I have one question: What did you use to make Omnipedia? I would love to make a similar website.
Thank you for your kind words! As for Omnipedia, we made it using Drupal. Here's a link to a blog post that details the process: https://playthroughline.com/blog/2020/10/22/creating-a-futuristic-wikipedia-for-...
We've also open-sourced our development process on GitHub: https://github.com/neurocracy
This looks super cool, but I'm kinda confused. It says that 10 episodes were released back in 2021 and there's a new run of 10 episodes happening now, but I don't really get what this entails. Like, do new episodes build on old ones, or do new episodes replace everything from the previous one? Is there a way to start with the older episodes and work from there, or is everyone seeing the current one and the game just goes offline once the season is over?
Really interested in trying this out, I just can't tell if it's something like Destiny or not (i.e. old content gets removed, and if you weren't there at the start, then there's no way to see it).
Edit: For context, I've never played one of these evolving community-driven games before. I'm sure if I had, these terms would make a lot more sense lol
In 2021, we released 10 episodes that displayed how the world of Neurocracy evolved between October 1st and October 10th 2049. This year, for Neurocracy 2.049, we’re also releasing 10 episodes that take place in the same timeframe. Each episode is very similar to the previous, so it’s not necessary to have read the original 2021 episodes to appreciate the Neurocracy 2.049 ones.
The main differences are that:
This new release is here so new players have a chance to experience the live release of Neurocracy, as well as surprise players from 2 years ago. If this is your first time, you’re more than welcome to join us. Hope that answers your question!
Thanks, that helped a lot!
As someone who likes working on wikis, this looks very interesting! Can't download it yet, but I'm definitely keeping an eye on this :)
Can I add anything to the Omnipedia?
The articles themselves are locked for editing, but Omnipedia's talk pages are wide open for your contributions :)
This kind of game-internet reminds me a lot of Jay Tholen's Hypnospace. Any inspiration from there?
I think it's an awesome project!
Neurocracy was in the works before Hypnospace Outlaw was revealed, but its release definitely inspired us, and made us hopeful there was an audience for us out there :)
Convergent!
This looks awesome! cant wait for it to download
the executable 'run' won't run on Linux mint Cinnamon even after allowing it to run as Program, Plz check
Hi! Thanks a lot for notifying us. After looking into it, it seems like it’s an issue coming from the engine, where some libraries are not correctly packaged. The only fix for now seems to install the libraries yourself, with this command (given below). Can you try that and tell me how it goes? Thanks!
extremely cool so far, bu ti can't log into my account & any attempts to reset the password lead to non-existing pages
Please try copy and pasting the link that the site sends you. We've had reports of various email services mangling the clickable link.
thanks! the issue was actually my adblocker! the links started working after I disabled it!