The White Chamber, stylized as the white chamber, is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

adventure game created by Studio Trophis using the Wintermute Engine. Originally designed as a

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

project, it was expanded to a full game and released for Microsoft Windows as free

download In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote ...

in 2005.

Gameplay

The player controls a girl who awakens in a coffin in a darkened room. She has no memory of how she got there, and opens the windows to reveal that she is in fact in space. The player must solve the puzzles and move from room to room, piecing together what happened to the crew of the station. Along the way, she discovers logs from a technician named Arthur Anderson documenting the mystery of the main laboratory, the titular "white chamber".

Release history

The first release of the game was released for free in 2005, and featured four endings depending on the player's choices during the game. It originally had no voice acting, but several animated sections, including an opening and ending. The inclusion of anime sequences meant the game was over 300 MB to download. The size was one of the contributing factors to the fact that it was originally available exclusively through bittorrent. In an article for PCZone Richard Perrin stated that using bittorrent allowed them to reduce their bandwidth costs greatly. The game is no longer available for direct download on the Studio Trophis site, due to unexpected increases in traffic. There is however, a download link on the site page. The game has been updated multiple times and is now at version 1.7. It features eight endings and the text in nine languages,

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...

, French,

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

and

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

and voice acting in either English or German. The game's

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...

and assets have been released under the

CC BY-NC-SA A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...

Creative Commons license A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyric ...

. That means anyone is free to share and modify the game as long as Studio Trophis is credited, it is not for commercial gain, and that the result is made available under a similar license ("

Freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

"). The game's

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

(" Wintermute")

was later released under the

MIT license The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...

in 2013 on

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. Around 2014 a

remastered Remaster refers to changing the quality of the sound or of the image, or both, of previously created recordings, either audiophonic, cinematic, or videographic. The terms digital remastering and digitally remastered are also used. Mastering A ...

version was announced for commercial re-release, by Richard Perrin's successor company.

Reception

The game has received very positive critical reactions. The

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

described it as "Grisly and intriguing, with logical puzzles and surprising plot twists, Chamber is a first-rate garage game." The Inventory magazine called it "A genuinely suspenseful horror game in a marvelously drawn anime style. All in all this game is a marvelous first outing by Studio Trophis." and gave 80/100 points. Indie Games Plus included it in their list of top adventure games of 2006. As of May 2006 the game has been downloaded over 100,000 times and has featured on many magazines across the world (including the UK's best-selling ''

SFX magazine ''SFX'' is a British magazine covering the topics of science fiction and fantasy. Its name is a reference to the abbreviated form of "special effects". Description ''SFX'' magazine is published every four weeks by Future plc and was founded in 19 ...

'' and ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'') and appeared often on cover discs.

References

External links

*
''The White Chamber'' project page
{{DEFAULTSORT:white chamber, the 2005 video games Adventure games Adventure games set in space Psychological horror games Science fiction video games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Windows games Windows-only games Freeware games Indie video games Point-and-click adventure games Video games featuring female protagonists Video games with alternate endings Video games with available source code Creative Commons-licensed video games Single-player video games