Pros and cons are down below) Check out my bid (first 5 games here):
I will revisit the game and finish it so right now my opinion is based on the first 5 games I saw. Later I will upload new comments regarding next games in line.
Advantages:
1. The conept of 20 different developers independetly creating games under the same narrative is super cool! I have been through 5 of the games thus far but I am already impressed and can't wait to see the game through till the end.
2. I love how different each game - the style and the mechanics are unique and fresh. It's incredible how they continue the storyline told by the last game previously.
3. Personally, I loved these logs. I think it's a nice charming detail that adds so much authencity to the whole experience!
Disadvantages:
1. Some games sometimes open incorrectly. The 3d game opened in a very small window for me and acted like was full-screen. I don't know what happened but that was a bit weird.
2. It's kinda interesting how each game has it's own little task but it would be so cool to see a bit more details. I think it would make the whole story telling even more fascinating if there would be more details to each game (though it would be much more complicated at the same time). Right now each games separately from the whole story feels a bit empty.
Overall:
I definitely rate this 5/5. All the developers made an incredible work and I will definitely finish playing the game later on the channel! I am very impressed.
Really fun collection of games! Props to all the devs, and hopefully there're more compilations like this in the future.
Ms. Blanch, The Participants, Avert Your Eyes, #13, Abraxas, and 999999 are the standout games to me (with Ms Blanch being my favorite), mostly because they ride that line of surreal horror I'm so fond of, have good atmosphere, and actively build on and expand the story and world of their predecessors. Some of the later games started to feel like they were playing very "safe" when it came to that, falling back on tropes and themes that feel a bit on the generic side.
I do also wish there was a little more cohesion to the compilation as a whole. I know the point was to only let each dev see the previous game, and I really like that idea, but perhaps if there was either an overarching theme that was consistent, or if more of the games expanded directly upon the story of the previous one (such as the ones I mentioned earlier). The narrative would still probably end up playing like a fever dream, but that surrealism could be very appealing.
The framing device used for the menu is wonderful, though. It does a good job pulling you in.
Lastly, and kinda just for funsies; even though no overarching narrative was intentionally written, I wanted to look for one anyway. Here's my take:
There's some kind of "things" that exist outside of our reality (Avert Your Eyes, #13). What exactly, who's to say, but they seem to fester and grow in our world, eventually bringing it to the brink of destruction (Abraxas). There's also been some cult-esque group studying them, and the only way to stop these eldritch beings (or maybe that's just what they want you to think) is by sacrificing yourself to them (#16).
But you don't die. Instead, they take you into their world (999999, Torch up through Organ of Eden), where they pass you through some kind of tests, and then pretty much strip you of who you used to be (Ms. Blanch starts as the main character, then is a secondary one, then disappears altogether).
When you finally emerge, you're back in time, or in a parallel timeline, or something, and this time you ARE the eldritch monster. You spread, and the cycle repeats.
Anyway yeah I know that's a lot of text but you all put this out for free and there are some real gems in here so I figured the least I could do was share some of my thoughts. Again, good job to all the devs, hope to see more soon c:
I thought that this game had a bunch of different art forms and was super interesting to paly through. for the first couple of games I was interested with the story then the Super Monkey Ball clone is when I completely forgot about the first couple of games were about because then the games continued to stray away from what I thought was the original narrative. I stopped playing when I got to the 19th game because I was playing a 3rd slenderman clone. The only thing that was really enjoyable about the games was the different art styles. I get that this is what it was based around to have a bunch of different art styles surrounding one narrative but it lost its value when the games started to derail and became boring to play. I think that this was an amazing idea and it was super fun to play for the first couple of games (even if it was just a walking simulator). It felt like the general story was lost throughout the games. Although it was a super cool idea, I think having 20 different developers working around a (what seemed like) a super vague and unspecified topic to go around, it makes the games feel like cluster of different games that don't go together.
Honestly, overall it's all right for a disjointed collection of games. It doesn't fit together at all, and some of the devs clearly didn't pay attention to the game before theirs, the most annoying part is when Ms Blanche goes from being the main character to a completely different character in a totally different role.
The super monkey ball clone is horrible. Organ of Eden is also trash, you can clip through basically everything and the collision is so janky that there are probably a dozen or more possible softlocks. Otherwise, most of the games are reasonably decent in terms of operation, although some of them are literally 30-second experiences at best.
Thanks for the review, some fair points. But to be fair, the point of the chain was not to have a consistent narrative. You can't expect that from the way we set it up. The point was to see how a story would progress / deteriorate by communicating through games. :) The limit for game length was 10 minutes, but shorter games were encouraged. We really didn't want this to take 5 hours to sit through.
I mean I didn't expect consistency overall, but I did expect each one to at least be consistent with the game before it. Drip is the main problem, where Blanch went from clearly being the test subject to being the person in charge of the tests.
As for the length, I did expect it to be short, but some of them just felt ridiculously so. Swell was just a clone of that agar.io type game and barely lasts long enough to develop atmosphere. 16 was just "walk into the yard and collect 3 plants". Vale you grab two books and then die. Like, I'm not asking for game of the year or anything of course, I know what to expect from game jam-types, but at the very least it should be more than "I made a single room and put some interactables in it", that's bad form. A couple of the "collect x item" games did the same thing but that's already been brought up by other people.
I agree with you about the narrative breakdown; it's clear that some of the devs wanted to try to keep a narrative thread going (like The Participants making a clear effort to refer back to Blanch, the participants and the test) while others didn't seem to make much effort to link at all (Day 11 seems to have zero connection to Organ of Eden).
I didn't really expect much from the length because I see it as a bit like the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc - more about concept and experience. 16 was one of my favourites, despite it's length, because I liked the concept of gathering herbs for a ritual: A longer game with expanded mechanics could be really cool. Likewise, Vale had really good atmosphere which made it far superior to Specimen 15 despite them being very similar in concept.
Though this is a collection of games created by multiple developers, papercookies has yet again succeeded in producing a strange and memorable experience. I highly recommend this title!
Really cool concept, it was awesome to see the way certain thematic elements morphed as each developer added to the story. The menu was fantastic as a framing device. I think just one bit of standardization would have been helpful: letting the player know the controls for each game. Here's a quick review of each game, I tried to be vague so as not to give away what happens.
Game 1 - Because the menu used only keyboard input and mouse was disabled, it never occurred to me that you could use the mouse to look around in this one. I played it through a second time using the mouse to move the camera, and it made a lot more sense!
Game 2 - I got stuck here for about two minutes until I realized you had to click to advance the text.
Game 3 - I liked the storytelling in this one, but the controls would have made more sense with just one directional input instead of two (which is totally normal for isometric games anyway). Especially as certain parts of the game had left/right arrow prompts but actually needed two keys held down to register anything, but then at the end there was a part that accepted single direction input after all. The visual flickering was really unpleasant.
Game 4 - Very cool, loved the character models.
Game 5 - The opening cutscene in this one was my favorite in the whole collection. Fun game.
Game 6 - This was my favorite one in terms of gameplay - just a lot of fun.
Game 7 - I find games in this genre really frustrating so I didn't enjoy this one at all. Some music would have been welcome.
Game 8 - Very strange, but I liked it.
Game 9 - The controls on this one didn't feel responsive at all, which might have been by design, but was pretty frustrating. I got very unlucky and lost multiple times in such quick succession that the failure message got overlaid on top of itself.
Game 10 - I liked this one going in, but the camera look sensitivity was so extreme that it was borderline unplayable (and I'm the kind of person that likes to turn the sensitivity aaaaall the way up). The first two times I tried to play I got trapped in the walls and had to force quit. The third time, I fell through the floor and won? I don't think this one is working as intended.
Game 11 - This had a very cool atmosphere but unfortunately I got completely stuck on the geometry after completing a second objective and it took me so long to get there in the first place that I didn't want to start over from the beginning.
Game 12 - Awesome concept & execution, though the ghosting effect was overkill on top of all the other visual effects. I got so disoriented by the ghosting I had to start over from the beginning since I couldn't tell where I was going, but it was worth it in the end. My favorite in terms of concept.
Game 13 - Strange, but I liked it.
Game 14 - This one was a little silly, but fun. I appreciated that you kept your progress even if you died, considering how easy it was to die. The first time I played, after dying I ended up spawning inside an enemy, which meant I couldn't move (trapped inside its hitbox) and couldn't die (enemy wasn't attacking since I was inside of it). Had to force quit and try again.
Game 15 - I find this genre of game pretty dull, but at least you moved so fast that it was easy to outrun any danger and breeze through it.
Game 16 - The look sensitivity on this was so low it felt like moving through molasses, but the puzzle was rewarding to solve.
Game 17 - いいだった。
Game 18 - Super cute, though I almost gave up on it after losing since it puts you at the very beginning and you have to advance through all the dialogue just to get started. Thankfully I got it on my third try.
Game 19 - I think I accidentally beat this one faster that I was meant to. The english needed some proofreading.
Game 20 - Strange, but a great ending to bookend the collection.
thanks for the thorough review!! we tried to hint at the controls in some of the log notes, as a kind of in-universe way of explaining things :) it's certainly not the most accessible way of doing it. we voted on displaying controls on the launcher but ultimately voted against it (also partly because we were running out of time!) thanks for playing! <3
The way this experiment worked is that each developer only got to see the game before theirs when developing their game. The "over-arching" narrative is up for interpretation, there are certainly a lot of themes that stick around for much longer, and I'd like to think there are some general elements that stay throughout the whole chain, even if they're subtle. Thank you for playing :)
Really enjoyed this, my only issue would be that their are a few too many slender style collect the pages games in a short space of time towards the end. Avert your eyes also is an absolute master piece and id love to see more games with this unique style
number 10 is soooo weird... Even though I got stuck in the walls 4 times and had to restart each, I think that this is my favourite, specially because of the previous disks
Very cool stuff, I’ve played through the 20 games on stream!
Visually & Sound-ally the games are really good, the launcher is well-made. It was quite louder than the games though.
It’s a bit of a shame a lot of the games lack interesting gameplay but as a game jammer I understand it’s hard especially given the constraint of telling the follow-up of a story that isn’t yours.
Most of the games aren’t that scary until the 14th or so, but all are pretty spooky and enigmatic. I ended up being sweaty at the end so I guess I was spooked alright!
thanks for watching, cool that you found the stream somehow.
Was this the slender-like with the eyes? When I saw the first one from afar, I felt in danger instantly so good job on that!
Such a great collection and a very cool and original idea! I had so much fun playing it. Congratulations to all the devs that worked on this collection.
Hey I'm Luke's Offline and I made the 15th game in C.H.A.I.N! Please tell me what you enjoyed and what you didn't enjoy about the game to help me improve upon it in the soon coming post-release version and so I can improve as a game developer! This was my first ever game release too!
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Really diggin this so far!
This is amazing!!
I'm really enjoying this, thank you for these amazing games!!Pros and cons are down below) Check out my bid (first 5 games here):
I will revisit the game and finish it so right now my opinion is based on the first 5 games I saw. Later I will upload new comments regarding next games in line.Advantages:
1. The conept of 20 different developers independetly creating games under the same narrative is super cool! I have been through 5 of the games thus far but I am already impressed and can't wait to see the game through till the end.
2. I love how different each game - the style and the mechanics are unique and fresh. It's incredible how they continue the storyline told by the last game previously.
3. Personally, I loved these logs. I think it's a nice charming detail that adds so much authencity to the whole experience!
Disadvantages:
1. Some games sometimes open incorrectly. The 3d game opened in a very small window for me and acted like was full-screen. I don't know what happened but that was a bit weird.
2. It's kinda interesting how each game has it's own little task but it would be so cool to see a bit more details. I think it would make the whole story telling even more fascinating if there would be more details to each game (though it would be much more complicated at the same time). Right now each games separately from the whole story feels a bit empty.
Overall:
I definitely rate this 5/5. All the developers made an incredible work and I will definitely finish playing the game later on the channel! I am very impressed.
Hope my feedback was useful!
Great video!
I Swear I might not sleep well after playing C.H.A.I.N
...the rattling, right?
Really fun collection of games! Props to all the devs, and hopefully there're more compilations like this in the future.
Ms. Blanch, The Participants, Avert Your Eyes, #13, Abraxas, and 999999 are the standout games to me (with Ms Blanch being my favorite), mostly because they ride that line of surreal horror I'm so fond of, have good atmosphere, and actively build on and expand the story and world of their predecessors. Some of the later games started to feel like they were playing very "safe" when it came to that, falling back on tropes and themes that feel a bit on the generic side.
I do also wish there was a little more cohesion to the compilation as a whole. I know the point was to only let each dev see the previous game, and I really like that idea, but perhaps if there was either an overarching theme that was consistent, or if more of the games expanded directly upon the story of the previous one (such as the ones I mentioned earlier). The narrative would still probably end up playing like a fever dream, but that surrealism could be very appealing.
The framing device used for the menu is wonderful, though. It does a good job pulling you in.
Lastly, and kinda just for funsies; even though no overarching narrative was intentionally written, I wanted to look for one anyway. Here's my take:
There's some kind of "things" that exist outside of our reality (Avert Your Eyes, #13). What exactly, who's to say, but they seem to fester and grow in our world, eventually bringing it to the brink of destruction (Abraxas). There's also been some cult-esque group studying them, and the only way to stop these eldritch beings (
or maybe that's just what they want you to think) is by sacrificing yourself to them (#16).But you don't die. Instead, they take you into their world (999999, Torch up through Organ of Eden), where they pass you through some kind of tests, and then pretty much strip you of who you used to be (Ms. Blanch starts as the main character, then is a secondary one, then disappears altogether).
When you finally emerge, you're back in time, or in a parallel timeline, or something, and this time you ARE the eldritch monster. You spread, and the cycle repeats.
Anyway yeah I know that's a lot of text but you all put this out for free and there are some real gems in here so I figured the least I could do was share some of my thoughts. Again, good job to all the devs, hope to see more soon c:
Thanks a lot for your thoughts about Abraxas <3
Really liked some of your takes on the narrative
ooo I really appreciate your thoughts and narrative take!
I thought that this game had a bunch of different art forms and was super interesting to paly through. for the first couple of games I was interested with the story then the Super Monkey Ball clone is when I completely forgot about the first couple of games were about because then the games continued to stray away from what I thought was the original narrative. I stopped playing when I got to the 19th game because I was playing a 3rd slenderman clone. The only thing that was really enjoyable about the games was the different art styles. I get that this is what it was based around to have a bunch of different art styles surrounding one narrative but it lost its value when the games started to derail and became boring to play. I think that this was an amazing idea and it was super fun to play for the first couple of games (even if it was just a walking simulator). It felt like the general story was lost throughout the games. Although it was a super cool idea, I think having 20 different developers working around a (what seemed like) a super vague and unspecified topic to go around, it makes the games feel like cluster of different games that don't go together.
The developers weren't aware of the overall narrative. Every dev only knew about the game what came before it!
Honestly, overall it's all right for a disjointed collection of games. It doesn't fit together at all, and some of the devs clearly didn't pay attention to the game before theirs, the most annoying part is when Ms Blanche goes from being the main character to a completely different character in a totally different role.
The super monkey ball clone is horrible. Organ of Eden is also trash, you can clip through basically everything and the collision is so janky that there are probably a dozen or more possible softlocks. Otherwise, most of the games are reasonably decent in terms of operation, although some of them are literally 30-second experiences at best.
Thanks for the review, some fair points. But to be fair, the point of the chain was not to have a consistent narrative. You can't expect that from the way we set it up. The point was to see how a story would progress / deteriorate by communicating through games. :) The limit for game length was 10 minutes, but shorter games were encouraged. We really didn't want this to take 5 hours to sit through.
I mean I didn't expect consistency overall, but I did expect each one to at least be consistent with the game before it. Drip is the main problem, where Blanch went from clearly being the test subject to being the person in charge of the tests.
As for the length, I did expect it to be short, but some of them just felt ridiculously so. Swell was just a clone of that agar.io type game and barely lasts long enough to develop atmosphere. 16 was just "walk into the yard and collect 3 plants". Vale you grab two books and then die. Like, I'm not asking for game of the year or anything of course, I know what to expect from game jam-types, but at the very least it should be more than "I made a single room and put some interactables in it", that's bad form. A couple of the "collect x item" games did the same thing but that's already been brought up by other people.
I agree with you about the narrative breakdown; it's clear that some of the devs wanted to try to keep a narrative thread going (like The Participants making a clear effort to refer back to Blanch, the participants and the test) while others didn't seem to make much effort to link at all (Day 11 seems to have zero connection to Organ of Eden).
I didn't really expect much from the length because I see it as a bit like the Haunted PS1 Demo Disc - more about concept and experience. 16 was one of my favourites, despite it's length, because I liked the concept of gathering herbs for a ritual: A longer game with expanded mechanics could be really cool. Likewise, Vale had really good atmosphere which made it far superior to Specimen 15 despite them being very similar in concept.
Okay about to start Part 3!! Going Live
interesting style.
Though this is a collection of games created by multiple developers, papercookies has yet again succeeded in producing a strange and memorable experience. I highly recommend this title!
Hi. I leave my little gameplay of the first 10 minigames. I have to play the next 10. An interesting experience.
An awesome experience from awesome game devs. You all rule!!
Had fun with this bizarre experience! Not often you find something this unique!
Alright here is part 1 and 2 of the stream i did. only 5 more games left to play and im still confused lol!!
Completely mind blown by the narrative, story, games, mechanics, just brilliant!
Really cool concept, it was awesome to see the way certain thematic elements morphed as each developer added to the story. The menu was fantastic as a framing device. I think just one bit of standardization would have been helpful: letting the player know the controls for each game. Here's a quick review of each game, I tried to be vague so as not to give away what happens.
Game 1 - Because the menu used only keyboard input and mouse was disabled, it never occurred to me that you could use the mouse to look around in this one. I played it through a second time using the mouse to move the camera, and it made a lot more sense!
Game 2 - I got stuck here for about two minutes until I realized you had to click to advance the text.
Game 3 - I liked the storytelling in this one, but the controls would have made more sense with just one directional input instead of two (which is totally normal for isometric games anyway). Especially as certain parts of the game had left/right arrow prompts but actually needed two keys held down to register anything, but then at the end there was a part that accepted single direction input after all. The visual flickering was really unpleasant.
Game 4 - Very cool, loved the character models.
Game 5 - The opening cutscene in this one was my favorite in the whole collection. Fun game.
Game 6 - This was my favorite one in terms of gameplay - just a lot of fun.
Game 7 - I find games in this genre really frustrating so I didn't enjoy this one at all. Some music would have been welcome.
Game 8 - Very strange, but I liked it.
Game 9 - The controls on this one didn't feel responsive at all, which might have been by design, but was pretty frustrating. I got very unlucky and lost multiple times in such quick succession that the failure message got overlaid on top of itself.
Game 10 - I liked this one going in, but the camera look sensitivity was so extreme that it was borderline unplayable (and I'm the kind of person that likes to turn the sensitivity aaaaall the way up). The first two times I tried to play I got trapped in the walls and had to force quit. The third time, I fell through the floor and won? I don't think this one is working as intended.
Game 11 - This had a very cool atmosphere but unfortunately I got completely stuck on the geometry after completing a second objective and it took me so long to get there in the first place that I didn't want to start over from the beginning.
Game 12 - Awesome concept & execution, though the ghosting effect was overkill on top of all the other visual effects. I got so disoriented by the ghosting I had to start over from the beginning since I couldn't tell where I was going, but it was worth it in the end. My favorite in terms of concept.
Game 13 - Strange, but I liked it.
Game 14 - This one was a little silly, but fun. I appreciated that you kept your progress even if you died, considering how easy it was to die. The first time I played, after dying I ended up spawning inside an enemy, which meant I couldn't move (trapped inside its hitbox) and couldn't die (enemy wasn't attacking since I was inside of it). Had to force quit and try again.
Game 15 - I find this genre of game pretty dull, but at least you moved so fast that it was easy to outrun any danger and breeze through it.
Game 16 - The look sensitivity on this was so low it felt like moving through molasses, but the puzzle was rewarding to solve.
Game 17 - いいだった。
Game 18 - Super cute, though I almost gave up on it after losing since it puts you at the very beginning and you have to advance through all the dialogue just to get started. Thankfully I got it on my third try.
Game 19 - I think I accidentally beat this one faster that I was meant to. The english needed some proofreading.
Game 20 - Strange, but a great ending to bookend the collection.
thanks for the thorough review!! we tried to hint at the controls in some of the log notes, as a kind of in-universe way of explaining things :) it's certainly not the most accessible way of doing it. we voted on displaying controls on the launcher but ultimately voted against it (also partly because we were running out of time!) thanks for playing! <3
Glad you enjoyed Game 6 (ours) so much :D
im really glad you didnt enjoy game 7!
Maybe I'm an idiot. The first 3 kinda ran together pretty well but can someone explain what the overarching narrative was? I couldn't quite catch it.
The way this experiment worked is that each developer only got to see the game before theirs when developing their game. The "over-arching" narrative is up for interpretation, there are certainly a lot of themes that stick around for much longer, and I'd like to think there are some general elements that stay throughout the whole chain, even if they're subtle. Thank you for playing :)
Really enjoyed this, my only issue would be that their are a few too many slender style collect the pages games in a short space of time towards the end. Avert your eyes also is an absolute master piece and id love to see more games with this unique style
When I was making game 15 I forgot slender existed haha, by the end I realized and it was too late xD
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number 10 is soooo weird... Even though I got stuck in the walls 4 times and had to restart each, I think that this is my favourite, specially because of the previous disks
Everyone involved did a phenomenal job on this collection! An amazing show of talent from one of the best indie communities around.
Aw thank you!
Show post...
THIS IS WOW! NOW PLAY PART .1 --GUYS GREAT JOBSVery cool stuff, I’ve played through the 20 games on stream!
Visually & Sound-ally the games are really good, the launcher is well-made. It was quite louder than the games though.
It’s a bit of a shame a lot of the games lack interesting gameplay but as a game jammer I understand it’s hard especially given the constraint of telling the follow-up of a story that isn’t yours.
Most of the games aren’t that scary until the 14th or so, but all are pretty spooky and enigmatic. I ended up being sweaty at the end so I guess I was spooked alright!
The broadcast is available here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/788828167
Sorry the first half is mostly in French because I had just a friend watching but then I switched to English when others arrived.
I think the most scary was the library one and the most creepy was the one where you burned those weird balls.
Enjoyed watching you play some of the games! I made the 15th game and it's always the last book that's the most annoying to find haha!
thanks for watching, cool that you found the stream somehow. Was this the slender-like with the eyes? When I saw the first one from afar, I felt in danger instantly so good job on that!
Yeah the slender with the eyes on, I forgot about slender until I'd finished the game haha. And thank you! :D
Am I the only one who can't play nº15? Every time I try to open it, it crash the entire game.
I think so... perhaps your pc lacks something or perhaps there is a missing file. I say it is the last one, so try to re-downoad it
Why I only own a mac... I really need to get a PC to play more games
google Bootcamp
I know that. My mac is old and not enough space. It would run horribly :/
Try assembling your own one. I heard that an entry level Mac can cost almost twice the amount required to assemble a Windows PC
a. what an incredible way to spend halloween!
b. incredible idea, it really kept me engaged and excited for each one.
c. holy cow, how the last one ended made me gasp. that was a really great way to conclude.
Such a novel idea! Played through it in one sitting, it was fantastic.
Hope you had as much fun playing as we did creating! :D
Such a great collection and a very cool and original idea! I had so much fun playing it. Congratulations to all the devs that worked on this collection.
So glad you had fun! We had fun making it too!
- Luke, Creator of Specimen 15
this is what its all about, MORE LIKE THIS PLZ DEVS THIS WAS FUN AS HECK
You can expect more from us all individually in the future too!
- Luke, Creator of Specimen 15
Bruh, this looks sick. I'm bit scared to play it tho.
Hell yehhhhhhh
Hey I'm Luke's Offline and I made the 15th game in C.H.A.I.N! Please tell me what you enjoyed and what you didn't enjoy about the game to help me improve upon it in the soon coming post-release version and so I can improve as a game developer! This was my first ever game release too!
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This is great! That launcher is the most awesome thing ever!
Absolutely amazing.
thank you!!!