[JoeX111]

The White Chamber

My personal experience with indie adventure games is extremely limited. Most of the one's I have run across in the past have either been ridiculously bad and pointless, or utterly good but lacking in some key area that kept them away from a perfect score. In the past, I was always led to these games through articles posted up on various gaming websites that had me hyped in advance before taking the plunge. Now enter The White Chamber, a game I had absolutely no preconceived notions about at all. Until the very day I started writing this review, I had never even heard it mentioned before. I saw a link; I downloaded a file, and started into what could have turned out to be anything.

The White Chamber, the first game released by Studio Trophis, is a science fiction horror game that is rather reminiscent of the film Event Horizon. Players take on the role of Sarah, a purple haired anime character who has awoken to find herself in a coffin onboard a large space station, with no recollection of what got her there, and ever increasingly finding herself in the middle of her own personal hell.

Make no mistake; this is not a game for kids. There is violence and gore and a lot of it to be witnessed here. To be fair, there is not much more here than you would see in, say, Silent Hill 3, but it is definitely worth noting. The comparison to Silent Hill, unfortunately, is not just limited to that statement. Longtime fans of that series will find that several of the "hellish" scenes in this game are designed very similarly to everyone's favorite foggy town. However, enough new material is added here to make it not matter as much.

The game focuses entirely on inventory puzzles, leaving the character to wander the space station in order to find the necessary equipment in order to move on. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, as the graphics in this game are very well put together. All of the backgrounds have an almost surreal grittiness to them, whereas the main character is made through hand-drawn animation and looks phenomenal. All of the major in-game cutscenes are also animated by hand, raising this game far above most other free adventure games in graphical quality. All of this ties together to create a rich feeling of dread and decay, an atmosphere this game evokes again and again to great effect. The only criticism I could venture here is that some of the sequences (opening the cupboards in particular) seem to slow the game down for a bit or two on high end machines as well as low. But given the quality of everything else in this game, it is definitely forgivable.

However, that doesn't mean there aren’t any limitations at all. The game is built primarily off of a rigid series of triggers that eventually become a long domino effect later in the game. Walk into this room and a scary scene will play. When it is over, you can take this item and use it somewhere else, which will trigger another scary scene and result in another item. While you can mix it up and go out of order a little bit, don't expect the puzzle freedom found in games like The Secret of Monkey Island 2. In order to balance this out a bit, the creators have made a few options available in game that will lead to various endings (four different possibilities). While this is definitely a great feature, it is not at all hard to figure out where these events are taking place while you play the game. Also, the only way they change the game is in the final ending sequence, making them rather akin to the multiple endings seen in The Dig some years earlier*. The game is also rather on the short side, which most seasoned adventure gaming veterans should be able to get through in about two to three hours at most. This is a pretty decent length for an indie adventure, though once you know how to beat the game, you can go back through it in about ten to twenty minutes or so, cutscenes not withstanding.

But while these are detractors, the overall experience and quality of the game are just too much to ignore. This game is definitely creepy and instantly engaging upon first loading it up. The interface is solid Full Throttle in style, with a mouse cursor that tells you what various hot spots are and right clicking allowing you to see how you can manipulate them (by either examining them or using them). The environment is large enough to allow a certain degree of exploration while being confined enough to remain realistic in terms of the story. Various areas in the game go through several changes as the game go on, alleviating some of the annoyances found in repeated back tracking. And finally, what is explained of the story is good, although rather derivative of some science fiction movies from the past few years.

As it stands, this is an exceptionally well put together indie adventure worth the large download for any science fiction or horror fan out there looking for something new to wet their appetite.

Joe's Game Score: 7 out of 10.
(Or 3 and 1/2 stars out of 5)

*As of writing this, I have only found three of the four given endings, meaning that the final one could be drastically different from this, but the other three are not.

[Tanukitsune]

I finally played The White Chamber and got all the 4 ending and I must admit, it creeped me out and I enjoyed it quite a lot...

It does remind me a bit of Silent Hill, but most games of this kind do, right?

The only part I didn't like was that the download took 30 hours! And I have a 1Mbps connection, so it had to be their server...

Maybe after it got crowded after the official AG review?

[Israfel]

Nice review.

I definitely enjoyed this one; it's a fun little game, particularly for a freebie. It's basically an anime Silent Hill in space--minus the combat of course. And hey, that suits me just fine.

[After a brisk nap]

As far as I'm concerned, this is the best amateur adventure so far this year. While the story is not very original and the puzzles mostly consist of finding the triggers that will allow you to move on, the overall quality of execution is just exceptional.

I don't really see how you could say the endings aren't that different. There's a "good" ending, a "bad" ending and two that are essentially "game over" death sequences. It's true that the gameplay isn't affected by which one you're going for, though.

[RLacey]

My views on this game are, predictably, discussed here.

[stepurhan]

Originally Posted by Tanukitsune

IThe only part I didn't like was that the download took 30 hours! And I have a 1Mbps connection, so it had to be their server...

Maybe after it got crowded after the official AG review?

I got a BitTorrent client to download the game and did it about 45 minutes. The ironic thing is I haven't got around to playing it yet. Anyone who hasn't downloaded it yet, the BitTorrent setup is without doubt the quickest way to do it. You should be able to get a Windows based client here

[mahjong man]

White Chamber was one of my all time favs, but yes it is a gorefest