In NexusZero, you play as a Replicant in Philip K. Dick’s/Ridley Scott’s/Denis Villeneuve’s (take your own pick!) Bladerunner universe. The objective is to recover several memory fragments scattered across the city. While looking for these, you must avoid Bladerunner patrols (or escape them once detected). These are marked by flickering yellow lights, unless they are chasing you (i.e. you have been detected), in which case they are displayed as flashing blue and red lights. Obviously, your own location is the centre of the green crosshair.
One twist is that the Bladerunners know where your memory fragments are located, whereas you initially don’t. They will show up as pulsating green square icons once you have come close enough to detect them. When following normal patrol routes (i.e. when they are not chasing you) Bladerunner units visit the corresponding locations at irregular intervals, so observing their movement patterns may give you a hint as to where the fragments have been deposited.
Once you have come close enough to a memory, it is collected and the icon becomes inactive to indicate this. Bladerunners visit places where fragments have already been recovered at a lower frequency, so the more you have collected, the more often they will be hanging around those that remain (statistically), making it harder to sneak in. This means there is an element of strategy in choosing the order in which to recover your memories (hint: those in the middle of the map tend to be harder to get to without running into a Bladerunner!)
During the menu phase, arrow keys allow you to change the number of memory fragments and of bladerunners (the default values correspond to medium difficulty). Once you have chosen how many of each, you may start the game by hitting the “Z” key. During the game, the arrows determine your heading (clicking on the arrow pointing in the opposite direction from that of movement causes you to stop). Hitting the “Z” key during the game toggles the pause (the game starts paused). Clicking on “X” activates a 2x zoom function (it currently has no specific use!)
The game ends when you have either been cornered by the Bladerunners (“RETIRED”) or have managed to recover all memory fragments (“ESCAPED”, 100% completion).
Good luck!
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