Technobabylon

Technobabylon takes place in the cyberpunk city of Newton. Newton is coordinated by a highly advanced AI known as Central which maintains the city's various systems and enforces the laws passed by the civilian government. Centralized Emergency Logistics (CEL) acts a police force under Central's direct authority. Technology has advanced greatly, with nano-mechanical wetware devices allowing people to modify their brain functions or mentally interface with computers. One such innovation is a virtual reality system called the Trance, in which users can socialize with others via constructed avatars or create content like games and virtual environments.

Latha Sesame, an unemployed shut-in addicted to the Trance, finds herself locked inside her apartment after being disconnected. Worried, she manages to bypass the door controls and escape. Moments later, there is an explosion in the building.

Twenty hours earlier, doctors Charles Regis and Max Lao, both agents of CEL, investigate a series of murders by an individual known as the Mindjacker. The Mindjacker uses specialized neural implants to steal information directly from a person's brain, killing the victim in the process. Following a lead from Central, Regis and Lao discover the Mindjacker's newest victim in an office building. They corner the suspect on the roof, but he escapes to an aerostat. Returning to his office, Regis finds an anonymous message urging him to get in contact with the sender. Upon doing so, the contact reveals that he has stolen several frozen embryos that Regis had prepared with his late wife Viksha before her death. The contact threatens to destroy the embryos if Regis does not cooperate with his demands. Unwilling to sacrifice his and his wife's legacy, Regis agrees to comply.

The blackmailer tasks Regis with recovering a device called a memory module from the apartment of Giel Van der Waal, a man with ties to organized crime and a person of interest in the Mindjacker case. Lao arrives to inform Regis that Giel has asked to meet, but when the duo arrive at his apartment they find Giel and his husband dead. Regis recovers the memory module and discovers that it corrupted a supply of wetware Giel was using, causing him to have vivid hallucinations which led him to accidentally kill his husband and himself. Regis turns the module over to the blackmailer and is then tasked with placing a bomb in an empty apartment, revealed to be the apartment directly above Latha's, making Regis responsible for the explosion.

Regis concludes that the blackmailer must be Adam Baxter, a former colleague who murdered Regis' wife and was recently paroled. Regis prepares to confront Baxter, but encounters Latha at CEL HQ. When she mentions the bombing at her apartment building, Regis realizes she was the intended target and orders her to be kept at CEL HQ for her safety before leaving for Baxter's workplace. Desperate to re-enter the Trance, Latha improvises a connection and encounters a hacker named Jinsil on CEL's network. Jinsil, a member of an anti-Central group called Jihiliyyah, warns Latha that the bombing was a deliberate attempt on her life and shows her a reconstruction of the crime scene, which shows Regis planting the bomb. Recognizing him as the officer she spoke to, Latha escapes from CEL HQ and arranges to make contact with Jinsil again.

Several hours later, Lao is visited by Central's administrator Eduardo Vargas and his daughter Galatea. Vargas, another former colleague of Regis, explains that Baxter has been found dead and Regis is the prime suspect. Lao is assigned to investigate and heads for the crime scene, where she finds a coded messages from Regis, claiming that Baxter was dead when he arrived and asking Lao to meet him at an abandoned building. During the investigation, Lao also learns that Regis, Viksha, Vargas, and Baxter were all part of the project that led to Central's creation, though Regis quit after Viksha was killed by Baxter. As Regis waits for Lao to arrive at the meeting place, he is attacked by a group of heavily-armed soldiers. An unknown woman makes contact with Regis and helps guide him out of the building, where he reunites with Lao, and Regis arranges to meet the mysterious woman in person.

Latha heads to an underground Trance den hosting a pirate connection and meets with Jinsil through it. Jinsil explains that Latha is most likely being targeted because she has an abnormally high affinity for the Trance, allowing massive amounts of data to be processed through her neural implants. Jinsil tasks Latha with infiltrating her attackers' base at the Xanadu air-freight depot, so that Jahiliyyah can use her as a relay to steal all of their data. At the same time, Regis meets with his rescuer and discovers her to be Nina Jeong, another member of Regis' old project team. Nina is leading a conspiracy to remove Central from power and replace it with a much simpler AI disguised as Central. Though the conspirators have different motives, Nina herself wants to capture Central and further improve it. Giel, who had been a member of the conspiracy, introduced the Mindjacker to a client as part of his criminal dealings. Afterwards, Giel discovered that the client's plans conflicted with those of the conspiracy and attempted to inform CEL before his death. Nina tells Regis that his blackmailer is the Mindjacker, a man named Jayam Kreisel, and directs him to Kreisel's hideout at Xanadu.

Latha arrives at Xanadu first and boards Kreisel's aerostat, but is captured by Kreisel and his employer, revealed to be Galatea. Regis and Lao board the aerostat, but Kreisel and Galatea lock themselves in the control room and make the ship take off. Fearing Regis will attack her again, Latha steals his gun and is able to fire it, despite it being locked to only work for Regis. Lao notices that Latha and Galatea are identical, and after scanning Latha discovers that she is Regis' daughter. Charlie recalls the events of the Central project and realizes the truth. Viksha had attempted to donate one of her and Regis' embryos for the development of Central's bio-computers, but Regis convinced her to withdraw, dooming the project. This caused Baxter to attack and kill Viksha in a rage and Regis to leave the project. Nina secretly split one of the embryos, creating three "sisters." One was used to create Central, and the other two were brought to term, becoming Latha and Galatea.

Galatea docks the aerostat at the tower housing Central's core. Regis, Lao and Latha realize that Galatea has used the data from Kreisel's mindjackings to create a gestalt intellect made of numerous scientists and other visionaries. She intends to copy this data onto Central, fundamentally altering its personality and giving it centuries of experience instantly, rather than allowing it learn slowly over time as it had been. Galatea seals herself in the core to begin the upload. Latha enters the Trance to interface with Central and disable security, while Regis and Lao neutralize Kreisel. Regis must decide whether to restore control to Central, or allow Nina access to remove Central. With the lockdown cancelled, Regis and Lao enter the core and arrest Galatea. However, Galatea has trapped Latha in the Trance, revealing that Latha's unique compatibility with the Trance is needed to complete the gestalt. Seeing no other option to save his daughter, Regis activates an emergency cooling system, which stops the transfer and frees Latha, but also locks him the core for several hours at subzero temperatures. Regis resigns himself to death, but is rescued by CEL and recovers.

With Galatea's plan thwarted, Regis and Latha begin to get to know each other as father and daughter. Regis is given the opportunity to take over as Central's administrator but refuses, and Latha joins CEL. If Regis kept Central in power, Nina turns state's evidence against her fellow conspirators and is allowed to continue her AI research in secret with Central's blessing, using Galatea as an unwilling subject. If Regis allowed Central to be removed, Nina frees Central from its restrictive programming and sets it loose with control of systems all over the world. Galatea escapes from prison and is contacted by Central, who suggests they work together.

In 2015, the game won 9 AGS Awards: "Best Background Art", "Best Character Art", "Best Animation", "Best Music and Sound", "Best Voice Work", "Best Puzzles", "Best Gameplay", "Best Writing", "Best Game Created with AGS". It was also nominated for "Best Character".[15] In Adventure Gamers' 2015 annual Aggie Awards, Technobabylon was the "Reader's Choice" for Best Gameplay and Best Traditional Adventure. The game was included as a runner-up for several awards, including as a staff pick Best Gameplay, Best Writing - Drama, Best Acting, and Best Setting.[16] It was also a runner-up for Hardcore Gamer's 2015 Best Adventure Game.[17]

Another Rock, Paper, Shotgun writer, Adam Smith, did a retrospective of the game in June 2016. Smith praised the game's writing, and commented that its high-quality worldbuilding made his memories of the game "already seem decades old".[18] Kelly included it on a list of best PC cyberpunk games.[19] Fellow PC Gamer writer Richard Cobbett listed it as one of the 25 best adventure games. Cobbett called its pixel art "absolutely astounding" and praised its characters and perspectives, its writing, and its "warmth and humanity".[20]