C.H.A.I.N.
A downloadable game for Windows
PRESS
"A compilation of 20 wildly varied haunt ’em ups from over 20 developers, Frankenstein’d together for free into a single winding narrative anthology."
- Rock Paper Shotgun
Download
A downloadable game for Windows
PRESS
"A compilation of 20 wildly varied haunt ’em ups from over 20 developers, Frankenstein’d together for free into a single winding narrative anthology."
- Rock Paper Shotgun
Comments
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this whole collection is cool as hell!! definitely one of the most unique and engrossing indie projects i have ever had the pleasure of playing. spoilers ahead tho, so dont read if you havent played.
i dont particularly understand what the devs in the latter half were doing? their narrative seemed to focus on a whole different story. and while it was really good, it left me questioning what exactly was going on. maybe im just not understanding and its a skill issue? but the guy in the blue suit, i never figured out what his deal was. what are the participants participating in? what did the eye creatures and the forbidden books of knowledge have to do with all of that? what in the WORLD was that weird alien thing that was killing scientists?
from what I can gather, Ms. Blanch was dead in the first game? and she went through the caves and found the man in blue, who gave her a chance at some form of redemption if only she could conquer some sort of internal anguish? and then you find out that he is there to guide...lost souls, maybe? Then it cuts to, what I presume to be the souls of those who didn't overcome the challenge, who fight for strength underwater to become stronger so they can escape? I have no clue what the deal with the flying head who collected the gems was. Maybe that was like...freeing yourself from the depths of the ocean, and travelling towards a something higher? Then you had to put yourself back in your body, break free from the constraints, and fight your way out of some sort of purgatory or something?
But then, and maybe i have the order wrong, there's a weird alien completely unrelated to anything else. and then there's some weird books that some dude collects so he can seek knowledge, but the knowledge isnt meant for humans, and it drives him insane. Someone else tries to keep the beings away by killing them and sacrificing people, but it doesnt work? and then it comes back to Blanch who is somehow at the end of the void and the man in blue sends her back to the beginning.
I just wanna understand, because I LOVE what I can figure out from this. I'd like to know more. Sorry for the super long message, and feel free to have me delete it if you dont want the spoilers being visible. I just wanna maybe talk to someone about it because I'm super interested haha
LOL W.T.F
C.H.A.I.N
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twenty games for free? count me in lol
please add an epilepsy/flashing warning to the description! the third game in particular was a nightmare on the eyes (even though it was one of my favorites!)
this is absolutely amazing, what an original game. I can't remember any itch.io game that could be better than C.H.A.I.N... I love this project
I recently played through the entirety of this collection in one sitting, and it left me with mixed feelings.
It definitely started AMAZING and even DID REALLY keep up with the more or less cohesive narrative for the first few games… up until the fall into subcon, from there it would pick up for a bit in a different but still interesting narrative up until completely breaking down with SWELL And Organ, and the games themselves from that point onward weren't even really as cool in comparison, mostly. Shell, I can't even find an explanation for how could it go from Organ to the next game… It's like there was no transference of the game in-between and so the next dev had to start from scratch again, and it only confused me even more.
In my eyes, the experiment unfortunately failed.
And yet, the collection, on its own, is mostly good, some games are great, even. As much as AVERT YOUR EYES is kind of horrid to sit through, it's also absolutely amazing and truly unique, and I would honestly love to see more of such concept evolved. And, at the very least, the ending was cool, even if it was barely a game, and it amazingly looped on itself.
Very hyped for trying out C.H.A.I.N.G.E.D. now.
Hopping on super late to the party, but this was a very fun experience!! Some games were a little hard to play and actually ended up making me very nauseous, but I love the idea of having a kind of Telephone Game but with gamedev. Is it coherent? No, it´s very obviously split up into two very distinct narratives- one about Ms. Blanch, the other about rebirth and a haunted library. But that doesnt mean it wasnt a blast to play through and seeing what narrative pieces stick through longer than other (such as the ocean theming sticking around for a few games).
Absolutely excellent piece of creative media, better than or equivalent to any horror movie out there. The HPS1 community continues to deliver an insane metric of art beyond this world!
I honestly agree with you its an amazing piece of media with a lot of creativity
Excellent game!!
20 games one crazier than the other and all part of the same story.
This was a great experience, because of this game I met very talented developers, that I'm now following their work. AWESOME GAME!!!
this looks absolutely insane.
it's pretty much the videogame equivalent of telephone
Since CHAINGED just came out, I figured I would repost the playlist from CHAIN. here is all 20 videos playlist with no commentary, im excited for the new one!
Full Play NO Commentary Full Playlist
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLANFpp3d1ebGqoaOmxscY-GkMZqP2vXNJ
Overall an astounding collection of games, but a few (Organ of Eden in particular) are more or less completely busted to the point where the player is more likely to get lost for an hour and quit the narrative altogether than to actually persevere. When you fall through the floor AGAIN after your 3rd 30-minute attempt to munch all the scientists, meaning you have to slowly climb a stupidly long spiral staircase for an additional 20 minutes, no player without godly patience is gonna care enough to see the ending, leading to a disjointed experience of starting the next game.
To add to this, I found that Organ of Eden often had traps where you would get stuck in doorways, walls and had to restart from the beginning.
really fun, but maybe don't play if you're prone to motionsickness cuz i almost threw up several times
I'm having difficulty reading the cursive writing in the log notes for specimen 4: Emerge. Does anyone have a transcript of them?
loved all the games, and def loved how yall put it together
i managed to glitch through the floor in one, where you had to put signs around wells? fell out the world and didnt feel like replaying that one
sensitivity was really low sometimes also
but yea, great game[s]!
I'm a bit late to this one, but am glad I gave it a shot. I played through every game, read all the logs. The presentation of the collection was especially fun with this sort of paranormal study of each disc. My only complaint was the lack of audio and mouse sensitivity controls between each game. I hope to see more equisite-corpse style jams!
streamed it here:
Had a great moment, but sometimes the games had those groundbreaking bugs where you would fall in the limbo or glitch in the wall. Overall it was nice
heh, "groundbreaking". funny
This was awesome! I just finished playing it on stream, and that was honestly probably the most fun I've had streaming in a while. I love how it was basically just a huge game of telephone, but with games lol. My favorite thing was how Ms. Blanch (eventually Mrs. Blanch, congratulations on the wedding by the way ma'am) started out as just a normal lady, and then turned into a sea creature that had to pass some kind of test, and then the overseer of said test... In my opinion it just goes to show how a story can evolve over time as different people tell it... 10/10 my guys
want to play but the sensitivity is insane
this is a good game but anyone knows what the fuck is happening in the lore?
The point is that the "story" in one game is continued by the person who made the next game based on what they understood from the game that was before theirs, so it just kinda evolves into a mess, but that's the beauty of it lol
I played this for my Twitch channel and it was an absolute blast playing it all the way through. We had so much fun trying to piece together all of the lore and who all the characters are. I didn't know that the devs couldn't communicate with each other during development, which I find really cool learning now! Despite that, I still feel the narrative got confused between Specimen #04 and #05, as well as Specimen #09 and #10. This could be because I don't fully understand the lore, but I'm confused as of how Mr. Floaty Head became to be and who the alien creature in containment becomes. Nevertheless, I very much enjoyed all of the developers, all of the games, and loved the narrative and story that it told!
If anyone is debating on playing the game or not, please try it out!!
This is such an AMAZING idea! Love the aspect of this anthology! It's so different and cool. I'm doing a series on it and played the first 3 games in my first video. Cant wait to see how this story unfolds! I'm HOOKED!
*spoier warning!!! i managed to play the last game first cause im dumb but so far this is a great little game and expereiance
I think this is an unforgettable game, hahaha
thats so awesome i wanna make fried egg for u <3
hey that means a lot to hear. i think we'd all like that.
Why is that such a wholesome statement, I love it, I'm going to say that forever now
And final, I guess:
Final
Part 2:
Part 2
HPS1, to me, is very reference in horror games experiences like a short cult movies, but here is more ominous, because we are IN the narrative. Congratulations by the art, story and the narrative focus each game. I love it. Soon enough comes the second and third parts. Here it goes the first one:
Part 1
Love the exquisite corpse style of this project very creative. Kinda confused about what happened between Organ of Eden and Day 11. Those ones didn't really connect at all :/
only first game is truly a great one. i literally bursted into tears. what a great game. what an ending...
I just beat this game and overall it was an, Ok experience. Not to say these games were bad and reading through the comments I realized how this game works with each person only seeing the game before them. And sometimes that helps, hell I really loved the first part and see that Water Lady and her body adventures and I thought there was going to be more but it stopped eventually. Then kicking off to the second part of the Angel Eyes which I honestly really liked most of that part, but then it was hitting the end and it felt the games had become so far apart that it almost ruins the first part because it's so distant.
But to be fair, that is the purpose of the game to be a telephone game, but I feel bad for the second to last game because it felt so bland and it's supposed to be the game before the final game. And the finale game, Well it was cool. But it also felt like it ruined it as well? Like it felt like the game was trying to piece itself together but yet it doesn't really work because of the lack of a full narrative. Also, I do wish that the UI section of the game had a bit more revalance besides the Notes because that would have been cool.
But this does not mean people shouldn't play this game. Because honestly there are alot of good games in here, just maybe view the story as parts instead of one full one. ANyway good yall for putting all your hard work into this collections
We didn't really plan for a coherent story, there isn't really much of one, that's why in our trailer it's lore is that the government are trying to make coherent sense of it, it was all done in good fun.
I think the ending was made entirely separate of any story, and wasn't made to follow the game before it, haven't played in a while but I remember when I got to it I was in pain from taking so long to move haha.
When I made 15 I didn't think of making the story coherent, I just made the game loosely based on the last one, find books and these weird orb things which my brain converted to eyes chase you.
Glad to hear you had fun with it though, stay awesome :)
- Luke
my play through of this game the first episode, its pretty good if a little weird, but the stories do seem to connect in some way shape and form. I love how this game is made and its format, it certainly had me hooked
yeah, the two involving a library were probably the best ones considering they looked like actual effort was put into them, the only game that actually spooked me was the one that includes the "he saw me" thing.
Everybody put effort in, we didn't have long to make these games, only a week, everyone who worked on it was experienced but me haha, it was my first game release (game 15), but we had fun making it :)
Sorry to see you didn't enjoy it, we never had a planned narrative, it was more of a fun experience for us, an experiment, we made it in the same style of the telephone game, one person made a game in a week, passed it on to the next, who would have to play their game and make a game in a week based on that, then it'd carry on like that.
Oops forgot to add, the PS1 style doesn't really remain concrete in most PS1 styled games, it's more of a retro umbrella terms from what I've seen.
WOW! This is such a cool concept, and playing through all these microgames was so cool. It was so exciting to see how each new dev would be inspired by and remix the previous game. The best part of the game was seeing which bits of the story survived from game to game and witch bits were lost in the telephone game. I was consistently amazed by the diversity of styles, aesthetics, and game play mechanics, all linked together by a slick launcher and ominous supplemental documentation.
As for narrative, it seems like there were almost two separate arcs, one going from "Torch" to "Organ of Eden" and another going from "Day 11" (witch bears no obvious narrative connection to the previous game, though it has some thematic similarities) to "999,999". The first arc is wonderfully dreamlike while the second arc is more structured, both very interesting.
My favorite games were "Mrs. Blanch"(By far the scariest), "Avert Your Eyes"(What the hell is that filter, it's amazing! And I love the ominous lovecraft imagery mixed with snapchat text. Plus any game that can make you afraid while your holding a FLAMETHROWER is doing something powerful), and Scary Library (LOVE the art and the fixed camera made it so tense to round corners).
Overall, everyone who likes horror needs to try this.
Glad to see you had a great time with our collection! :)
i loved Dream Aether, played it too many times
Great idea! Is there any other project like this?
yes! this project was inspired by Experiment 12, which is a similar concept: http://www.geocities.ws/experimenttwelve/
thx devs for making this game, i loved it really much!! there are a few pros and cons but i absolutely loved the separate and unique atmosphere of each game!!
the overall idea of making games without telling eachother is really interesting, i hope there is a part 2, but if not then its ok :) it brings me back to the old PSX scary games hehe, all of the 20 are top-notch!
Absolutely an incredible collection. Having a single narrative, even if it was loose, helped make this one of the best lo-fi horror collections I've ever played.