Neurocracy and when Wikipedia leads to murder

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For some, Wikipedia is a resource; for others, it’s a playground. If it’s not Wikiracing — a sprint to get from one article to another as quickly as possible using only internal hyperlinks — then it’s Charades played from random pages, Wikington Crescent (don’t ask) or the editing-based WikiCup.

It was only a matter of time, then, before it inspired an interactive narrative. Open omnipedia.app in your browser and you’ll find a website that looks every bit like the online encyclopedia, but is actually a work of fiction called Neurocracy — a murder mystery set in the year 2049, hidden across the articles, previews and edits of the site. The game’s director Joannes Truyens describes it as a combination of an “alternate-reality game, epistolary novel and hypertext fiction”. Really, though, there’s nothing remotely similar to compare it to.

Each week, players must dive into new articles and trawl through the version history of existing ones as they hunt for clues on the murder of fictional Chinese tech mogul Xu Shaoyong, whose helicopter was brought down by a hacked security drone. Look at his Omnipedia article on the day of his death, for example, and you’ll find three matter-of-fact sentences about the attack; the day after, you’ll find a new comment from the Chinese government pointing out a “possible link” to a hacking collective; the day after that, the link has become “strong”. It is by collating and comparing myriad subtleties like these — but not necessarily believing them all — that you’ll uncover what really happened to Xu.

Neurocracy was first released in 2021, but has been radically overhauled for its second incarnation. It remains free to play, but to help gamify the process, a standalone desktop app has been created. For an optional $12, it will act as an Omnipedia browser and offer players somewhere more convenient than a Word document or ratty notebook to collate their suspicions and theories. Players can also choose to upload their notes to the developers, who will get an aggregate of the weekly theories and use them to work out which bits of the story to flesh out. “It’s no longer just passively reading — you’re actively manipulating information, you’re sorting it for your benefit and that of the community,” says Truyens.

The game started life as an ambitious mod for Half-Life 2, before Truyens dabbled with the idea of turning it into a novel. But it was while compiling all of the project’s background detail and world-building in a Wiki-style database that the idea came to him: why not use the widely recognised and sprawling online encyclopedia format as the platform and gamify that compulsion to hurtle down the Wikipedia rabbit hole? “You start with one actor and three hours later you’re looking at suspension bridges, and you’re like, ‘How did I get there?’” says Truyens. “That is basically the gameplay of Neurocracy.”

It’s a sea of information and you have to find your way in it

It’s a reversal of Hemingway’s iceberg theory, where the hidden structure is vastly bigger than what the reader sees. Instead, Neurocracy provides players with all of the background detail and asks them to plunge in and construct a story around it. “I think that inversion of how the story is told naturally resonated with players,” says Truyens. “It’s a sea of information and you have to find your way in it.”

It’s also an interesting commentary on the impact of the internet and social media on our news consumption, forcing players to parse and question information that at best can seem ambiguous and at worst is actively compromised. In this respect, Neurocracy’s pages are just as much a resource as they are in real life: contested by different factions, they represent a battle between the self-interest of those referenced and the altruistic efforts of the community. “Everyone comes in with their own perspectives, their own knowledge, their own expertise,” says Truyens. “We had neuroscientists, AI experts, microbiologists, and they were all bringing the benefit of their knowledge.”

Just as Neurocracy has continued to grow since its first release, it will also change over the course of its second season. An accompanying discussion forum will allow players to compare notes and encourage them to role-play as Omnipedia editors from the future; discussions will contribute to the direction of the project on the fly. It’s an ambitious prospect for a core team of just three, but one that Truyens sees as fundamental for a game set on a crowdsourced platform: “The community coming together between episodes and giving us more ideas — that’s the beating heart of Neurocracy.”

‘Neurocracy season 2’ is available now, neurocracy.site