Zero Critical (also known as Satin Rift) is an adventure science fiction PC game developed independently by Istvan Pely and published by Bethesda Softworks.

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.

During his stay, Chatt interviews station staff Dr. Fayn, Dr. Thomas Vilken, Roger Olken, Myna Symmine, Magus Canter, and Eugene Garr.

The investigation is for the most part inconclusive but it is gradually revealed that, apart from Geop, three other staff members are equipped with SynCore Symbiotes or syms (microcomputers implanted into the brain to augment its calculation powers).

Magus, the station's maintenance worker, and a former member of Thundercloud Project staff, reveals that not far from the SATIN research site lies the resting place of S.S.

The good-natured and humorous Roger is the next to go mad; just as he once jokingly has fantasized, he knocks Chatt unconscious and attempts to shoot Dr. Fayn, but kills Magus instead and commits suicide.

Towards the end of the game, Chatt learns that Pleiades nebula, the site of the accident, has a unique property that every 2048 years it acts as a gateway into a type of parallel universe and every object that passes through it duplicates.

Chatt also learns that the aliens were trying to warn the scientists by transmitting thoughts and images through their syms, and that is what drove many of them to psychological dysfunction and mental breakdown.

Istvan Pely began developing the game circa 1997 with his team, Sherban Young (screenplay writer) and Seth W. Jones (musician and sound editor).

Throwing aliens into the mix made for a very unique take.Pely relates that his aim was to create a third-person graphic adventure with a heavy emphasis on story and characters.

[6] He also relates that he tried to create interesting and detailed environments for both Zero-Critical and Symbiocom as these were explorative games and there wasn't much else to do besides walk around and click on things.