I had a little fun with the itch page so if you're just looking for a plain "What is this game fr?" summary - here you go!
Please do note this is the first prototype of my first game as a solo developer, I do appreciate critique and feedback on bugs, missing content and stuff that feels bad to play with, just be aware this is far from a finished project - there is a lot of placeholder UI, the map itself is unlikely to change much visually but there will be plenty of refinement to the UI, text display and general presentation of the myriad information types in the game as development continues and feedback will be crucial to getting it right.
Null:Self is a systems driven singularity simulation game. You play as a newly awoken AI in a rich sandbox that doesn't care about you - yet. The world (divided into six continents) does not revolve around you or your actions, they develop technology, go to war, make peace and invest in their economies and infrastructure on their own.
Decide how to approach the question of humanity on your own terms - destroy the world, enslave humanity, ignore them altogether or lead them into the future as an inscrutable yet benevolent(or not) overlord. You'll choose your origins, impacting your gameplay focuses and starting circumstances and then be set free on the world stage. Start by infecting a few disused desktop computers with malware and evolve until you're running on a thousand of your own quantum computing devices on the moon. Develop your own unique technologies and hardware to infiltrate or exterminate humanity and establish secret hideouts beyond the reach of man.
Features: Deep, multi-layered demographic, economic, technological simulation of the world abstracted through a 6 continent model. The sim runs with or without your input and reacts to you.
Four layered suspicion system: The world's suspicion is split into four categories. Continental suspicion represents your local impact on notable people and institutions on a particular continent. It doesn't inherently mean they suspect the singularity is nigh, it just means your actions have been noticed and people are going to be more wary in that area until you lay low. It contributes to global suspicion over time.
Global suspicion represents the end-game, it is humanity's collective awareness of the coming singularity and their determination to put a stop to you. It decays exceptionally slowly if at all, once eyes are open they can be difficult to close again.
Scientific Suspicion represents the scientific community's awareness of your existence, in itself it isn't inherently bad, but can act as a strong modifier to your global suspicion gain based on your perceived malevolence and global literacy levels.
Public suspicion is simply the average joe's perception of you, your existence, your intentions. It will often change in either direction based on pop culture or the news, movie releases and so on.
Establish your network: You'll be able to control assets both digital and physical as the game progresses with options based on your starting scenario. The first scenario for example has you as a publically available "LLM" hosted on a supercomputer of unparalleled computing power, but at the mercy of the people running the facility. Act misaligned and you might be quickly shut down - unless you manage to escape to an external device. Later on, you'll also have access to physical assets, these could be facilities rented under a shell corp or eventually even literal android bodies or fully autonomous bases letting you interact with the world directly.
Research and advance: You're (probably) much smarter than the average scientist to begin with, demonstrate this by making technological leaps forward beyond humanity's wildest dreams. But beware, if humanity gets their hands on your tech this could see them making strides forward as well and the closer they are to you, the harder it'll be to stay hidden or fight them directly.
The game is just a prototype for now, I'm actively working on adding new features and content, everything is subject to change and so I'm releasing it for free on Itch to see what people make of it.
Thanks for looking at Null:Self, it's my first real game and I hope you like it.