2064: Read Only Memories Download PC

Turing is shaken but declares to dispense justice and uncover who is responsible. The story then splits depending on which lead the player follows. In the Media arc, suspicious tampering with news articles leads to a string of connected murders in journalism. In the Flower arc, more information about Hayden is delivered by Vincent Mensah (Xavier Woods), a Parallax engineer fleeing the country. It is learned that the news tampering was being done by the rogue Baby Blue program, an AI created by Parallax that would feed on every user's personal data through their ROMs and tailor search results for them. Parallax intended to shut down Baby Blue, but it is hiding on the integrated meshnet that all ROMs use, and Vincent reveals that a larger and more sinister AI called Big Blue is about to launch on Christmas Day.

Rather than intervene to solely shut down the AI, Turing, the journalist, and TOMCAT plot to upload Turing's original source code, written by Hayden and adapted by Turing's processes, to the meshnet using the Big Blue program, essentially granting the self-modifying sapience to all ROMs worldwide. During the mission into Parallax's server farm (carried out by the journalist, Turing, Lexi Rivers, and Dr. Fairlight's assistant Leon Dekker), Dekker incapacitates Lexi and reveals himself to be a combat android. He attempts to stop the protagonist's plan, to preserve Big Blue's power and manipulate Fairlight back onto the Parallax board, but is killed by Turing.

Dependent on whether the player successfully captured Turing's source code and the status of the player's relationship with Turing, the game splits into four endings. In the All Good Things ending, Turing successfully overrides Big Blue and all ROMs download the patch in the morning, attaining the same level of sapience as Turing. If this ending is achieved, the game continues into a bonus endless post-game chapter. In The Sacrifice ending, the group accomplishes the same goal of sapience for all ROMs, but Turing's hardware was too badly damaged by Dekker in the previous fight and Turing dies after the upload process. In A New Blue, Turing is disgruntled by the player's poor treatment and reveals their own plot before the upload. Turing transfers their personality complex to Big Blue instead, leaving their physical form lifeless and granting themselves omnipotence on the meshnet, severing ties with the humans who they aligned with before. In Complicity, Turing is unconvinced that they're doing the right thing and afraid to die for the cause, canceling the mission at the last moment and leaving the player to live with TOMCAT.

Development

Read Only Memories was funded through Kickstarter where it raised $64,378 from November 12 to December 12, 2013. The game participated in Ouya's Free The Games Fund which doubled the raised funds for a period of console exclusivity to what is now the Razer Forge platform. A Linux port of the game was planned if the Kickstarter reached $82,064, but that goal was not met. However, MidBoss announced a Linux version in a later Kickstarter update, nonetheless. The game released on October 6, 2015 on Windows, OS X, and Linux.

Read Only Memories is described as a queer-inclusive video game, and its developers are also involved with the GaymerX series of LGBTQ video gaming conventions. Setting the game in the future, MidBoss aimed to posit a future where LGBTQ characters face less discrimination, allowing queer characters to be presented on equal terms with straight counterparts. The player can specify which personal pronouns the game refers to them as: he, her, they, xe, ze, or a custom player-entry pronoun set.

The game is built in Unity and uses a Twine-like scripting language to manage game logic. Director John James cites Bubblegum Crisis and Phantasy Star IV among the game's visual inspirations. A playable demo of the game was shown at the March 2014 Game Developers Conference, and a demo was released to the public in November 2014.