Zero Critical

The gameplay takes place over a four-day period and the player is required to complete specific tasks and puzzles before proceeding to the next day. Zero Critical uses the point-and-click approach to move around, find and use inventory objects, examine items and communicate with other characters. Conversations take place through a dialog box with pre-programmed questions and responses to progress in the game when talking to other characters. There is no voice acting in the game, however there are lots of conversations but they are all done in plain text.

Conversations are initiated by clicking on a character or showing them an object. It is possible to choose various paths for the conversations. Asking questions normally generates new ones that are added to your list of possible queries. The player's PDA automatically stores dialog transcripts, this allows the player to go back and check on a comment he may have missed.

Two decades after the Majestic disaster, Zero Critical takes place on Rheom 1, a small extrasolar terrestrial planet of eternal daylight. Rheom has plenty of oxygen and it is believed that there would have to be some areas that had water. The setting on Rheom is rendered by extensive use of shades of gray and muted colors. It is revealed that due to its proximity to the Pleiades cluster, a group of astronomers had built an observation outpost on Rheom 1 to study the nebula nearby (Pleiades Observation Outpost, otherwise known as the Thundercloud Project).

This project was halted due to financial difficulties and the outpost fell into disuse until it was renovated ten years later for the SATIN Project, a highly-classified project funded by Interstellar Transportation Commission (ITC). The goal of the project is to develop a new form of long-distance space travel that would eliminate the drawbacks of the extant technology that harnesses traversable wormholes and is unstable, expensive and not terribly efficient. Doctor Victoria Fayn, a Nobel Prize laureate and expert on trans-reality physics, was hired to head the project, leading a small team of the finest scientific and technical minds alive.

The game is a traditional 2D game created in Director. Istvan Pely began developing the game circa 1997 with his team, Sherban Young (screenplay writer) and Seth W. Jones (musician and sound editor). It was initially titled Satin Rift but it was subsequently published by Bethesda Softworks in 1999 under the name Zero Critical.

The game was set to take place a year after the events of Symbiocom to which there are very few references. Zero-Critical was rather intended as a direct sequel to Majestic Part I: Alien Encounter as it concludes the events of that game. S. Majestic, Earth's finest pleasure cruiser and a crowning achievement in space travel, which on her maiden voyage set sail from earth's harbor and never returned.

All Game Guide said "Zero Critical is full of excitement, intrigue, great music and sound effects and should easily satisfy anyone who is looking for both an interesting story and good gameplay".