The Turing Test

Some of you may be asking “what the hell is The Turing Test?” 
The Turing Test was was a test designed by Alan Turing to determine if a computer could display intelligent behaviour and essentially pass its self off as a human. The way Turing proposed to do this was to have three rooms. In two rooms were humans and in one was a computer designed to produce natural human responses to questions. One of the humans would act as an evaluator and, knowing that the rooms contained one human and one computer but not which was where, they would pose questions to both and using the responses try to judge the human-esc validity of the responses from the subjects. 

Now, that’s all well and good but what about The Turing Test video game I hear you cry?



The Turing Test is an abstract puzzle game brought to us by Bulkhead Interactive and Square Enix.
Far into the future a research team has been sent to Jupiter’s moon Europa on an excavation mission. This research team consists of several members one of which being you, the player character. The typical cryogenic sleep space travel sequence kicks us off as you awake in the space station alone. I guess the rest of your crew weren’t your biggest fans as they seem to have fucked off, maybe to have a party without you or something. At least that was the first thing that came to my mind but you probably shouldn’t read to deep into my abandonment issues. 

It turns out that they all woke up before you to start the excavation without you which does beg the question of why. You seem to be the only person left in cryogenic sleep and apparently no tampering or anything had occurred, so why are you so special? The best answer for this I can give is to introduce your companion character T.O.M (Technical Operations Machine), an ominous disembodied voice that guides you through the facility on Europa. Is it just me or is this is starting to sound a bit familiar? 

Once you get into the facility the gameplay takes a front seat. You’re equipped with a firearm that can collect and distribute power spheres, these spheres are used to open doors, power machinery and essentially push the plot forward. That part is fairly straight forward whereas the rooms, or tests, you have to complete are far from it. Some just involve repositioning the power spheres to progress through a locked door. Others however, require your precision and timing to be perfect when raising a platform, extending a bridge or running through time relay doors. 

As you get further and further through the facility the tests obviously grow harder and harder. Once you’ve completed the first couple however the gameplay has very little to offer other than slight variations on previous rooms. At this point in the game the story decides to pipe up again like a narcoleptic lecturer. Despite the fact that T.O.M has been with you the entire time and is an A.I designed to monitor the project he or it offers no help to these tests at all, even when he realises that the tests can only be solved by a mix of human and artificial intelligence. This is forced into play finally when you encounter a member of your hastily departed crew warning you that T.O.M isn’t what you think he is - it is? - This is where the story bomb gets dropped on you like a massive dump on a surprisingly open minded prostitute: T.O.M doesn’t want the crew leaving Europa. 

Everything up until this point is pretty standard - alone in space, dubious computer directing you through a weird, puzzle-filled facility, warning signs of your welfare being at risk etc.
So I’ll put a spoiler warning here for the rest of the review just in case you actually want to play The Turing Test and have some sort of surprise when you do so.

It turns out that T.O.M has been controlling you with an implant and you haven’t been playing the player character at all but merely playing as T.O.M controlling her. Reading that sentence back I realise that it actually makes no difference who you’re controlling as progress is still being made. The reason T.O.M doesn’t want the crew leaving Europa is because of some microorganism they found on their excavation that apparently holds the answer to immortality sparking the moral and ethical implications to take centre stage. 

A few things I’d like to clarify before we go any further: 1) The microorganism’s immortality properties are never explained, why push what you don’t need to I guess or more accurately what you have no fucking clue about. 2) Immortality and Indestructibility are not the same thing, so when everyone is jabbering on about the population constantly growing due to no one dying I don’t think anyone was entertaining the idea of Darwinism. 3) A lot of these moral and ethical issues are raised by T.O.M him or itself (I don’t know anymore). So the whole underlined concept of The Turing Test has just been blown away by this Artificial Intelligence obviously displaying humanoid thoughts, feelings and, to a lesser extent, emotions towards keep the human race in balance. The game may have realised this so it’s swiftly forgotten and you're thrown back into the puzzles just as you may have been developing a coherent, independent thought about the situation. 

It turns out that T.O.M had been controlling all of the crew with implants from the beginning, I guess to prevent circumstances like this microorganism business from happening. It was definitely the right call though as the crew hadn’t even discovered the microorganism until they got to Europa, upon which the ISA (International Space Agency) immediately obstructed T.O.M to stop them by using the implants. That plan goes tits up when the crew realise and remove their implants, at which point this incredibly intelligent, stand-alone, super computer had to resort to killing the crew by enlisting a member of the crew. Maybe it’s just me but it feels like a little bit of a loophole there, T.O.M obviously has the power to control things in the facility - at one point previously alluding to starving them being an option - and yet he needs to bring you in to stop your crew rather than just locking them out. 

T.O.M’s constant existential blabbering is nice and all, if a little pretentious at times, but it’s all filler that can easily be mistaken for intelligent story point conversation. In fact it he seems to have little to no power and just sees himself itself as an understanding and benevolent composition of wires and circuits when in fact he it is just a know it all, egotistical hot mess with an itchy kill function. 

I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy The Turing Test but I was left feeling a little let down. The moment that this hit me was right at the end when, after bucking the control of T.O.M, you break into his control system to shut him it down so you and the remaining crew can leave with the microorganism. In lieu of control over the player character you’re forced to watch this through T.O.M’s perspective of various cameras until finally a Sentry gun in the main control room. First time around I shot the intruders and got the “completed game” screen, so I promptly restarted the final level and opted not to shoot anyone. In my vast gaming experience I know that no game’s finale is designed with multiple options without a branching path system showing different endings, so imagine my surprise and disappointment when bugger all changed. Maybe you as the player are supposed to imagine either the crew dying of starvation or space madness - kinda like March madness except a little higher up and a lot colder - or, on the flip side, imagine them making their way back to Earth in an escape pod that was never mentioned or alluded to. People won’t get to those conclusions though without either visuals or a statement declaring such. I don’t mean to alienate my audience but the average player won’t extrapolate to the degree of finishing off a story that in all honesty should have been finished off for them. 

Cast your mind back to the paragraph before last, the twelfth word to be exact. Pretentious. That word describes The Turing Test perfectly for me from the beginning. Immediately I was reminded of Portal - the tests, the psychotic A.I., weird existentialism, the odd nonsensical motive-to-execution train of thought. The biggest difference is that Portal knew how tongue in cheek it was being. GLaDOS was flawed but showed initiative when things went wrong, T.O.M just resolves thing gunning people down. GLaDOS didn’t need implants to control her subjects, just a set of deviously designed tests and a locked door. Ultimately and most importantly though, Portal had a much more satisfying ending!

When you step back and look at the broader picture, The Turing Test isn’t anything special or different and I wouldn’t expect anyone to go into it thinking otherwise. It does itself a disservice by the constant reference to historical science culture. Sure, Alan Turing designed a test that this game is loosely based on (and I feel that’s being charitable) and the main characters name is Ava Turing so we aren’t off to a subtle start. There are even secret rooms - another thing stolen from Portal - where you can find audio logs that add another story element to the mix that incidentally goes nowhere. These rooms are plastered with reference notes outlining Alan Turing’s various tests that you can read and there are a hell of a lot of them, so if you do want to read them it’s safe to call you mad. 

The designers were very into the idea of Alan Turing and while there’s nothing wrong with that they could have exercised a little restraint. The game is interesting and solid. It has its quirks, like having a jump function that literally adds nothing to the game and I mean nothing, you can’t jump onto anything, seriously. One of the only good things The Turing Test apes from Portal was it’s length. At around four-ish hours it’s not an investment and I think it’s worth checking out The Turing Test, if anything just to see the levels of pretentiousness and ostentatiousness that it operates on. I found some fun to be had even if the rooms were a tad on the easy side so I’m sure others will find enjoyment in what it has to offer as well.

Thanks for reading guys and I hoped you enjoyed this look through The Turing Test. Remember to check us out on Twitter at @gcgamingtank, let us know what games you’d like us to review or any questions you’d like us to answer. In the mean time though keep checking back to Game Changers for more gaming news and updates. 

Happy gaming guys!