the white chamber

File:Wc cover 0.png

This doesn't even begin to describe the madness.

Do you know where you are? Do you regret? Are you ready?

the white chamber (sic) is a freeware point-and-click horror-themed Adventure Game designed by British indie group Studio Trophis (which also specialised in animation).

the white chamber follows a young woman (Sarah Ericson) who awakens within a strange glowing coffin. She soon discovers that she is trapped on-board a space station, and that something has killed the rest of the crew. The only clues point towards something called the "white chamber", but to learn the truth the young woman must first survive whatever malevolent presence still pervades the ship...

The game has been applauded for its impressive anime-style artwork (and surprisingly high-quality animation), high-quality sounds, and its creepy atmosphere that has been compared to the likes of Silent Hill. It's not a long game, but enjoyable (and quite frightening at times), and has clever puzzles that don't rely on, as Yahtzee puts it, "moon logic". Any Adventure Game buff should give it a try.

Just keep an eye on the blackboard in the lab room, while you're at it.

The lead designer has another game, Kairo, coming out in 2012.

Tropes used in The white chamber include:

• All There in the Manual: the grey tower is a prequel audio drama that basically gives insight into the backstory of the game, and even hints at a greater tragedy that has yet to occur.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: Sarah murdered the entire crew, and it all comes back at the end, though it doesn't turn her back to evil, since she regrets it all.
• And I Must Scream: The fate of the souls trapped within the Artefact.
• Animesque
  • Anime Hair
• Apocalyptic Log: Arthur's reports. He also turns out to be the one behind the horror. (Though if you compare his logs to "the grey tower"'s logs, he could simply be another victim.)
• Arc Words: "Do you regret?" or some variation of it.
• Artifact of Doom: The Artefact.
• The Atoner: Sarah. Until she redeems herself, Arthur forces her to relive the events of the game again and again.
• Creator in Joke: The characters in the comedy ending are parodies of the creators' personalities. Also, the fridge which smells so awful it can kill strongly resembles an actual fridge in one of the authors' student lodgings.
• Crapsack World
• Dark World: This pops up every once in a while. Technically, this "dark world" is darker than usual, as the entire game sans the ending is spent in a dark world.
• Do Well, But Not Perfect: If you do everything right and fill the blackboard with all six marks, you get the bizarre comedy ending. If you want an ending that makes sense, you have to only have three to five marks on the blackboard.
• Downer Ending: Several of them. Besides the instant deaths, you can be tortured forever by the spirits in the artefact, trapped to repeat the cycle again, or...the surreal comedy ending, which still ends with everyone dying.
• Dull Surprise: While the written lines and character portrait suggest the situation is shocking and emotional the VA continues to talk in the same neutral, measured tones even when discovering monstrosities or being forced to relive murders. This might have been a good sign of a detached and scientific mind but looks more like a failure to convey the emotion the character portrait suggests.
• Easter Egg: A few. For starters, interacting with the MES console multiple times results in the protagonist ending up in a pixelated version of the room, complete with 8-bit music and and a pixel-art portrait. And if you use the droid code before your character is able to learn it, the corpse you assemble later on appears on-screen, glaring at you. Also, there's the comedic ending?
• Electric Torture: The protagonist ends up watching a tape of herself being electrically tortured... And this causes her to be literally warped onto that same table and tortured in the same manner. You can die here, but they give you so much time to figure out the solution that the only way to actually die here is to let it kill you.
• Everybody's Dead, Dave: And the protagonist killed them herself.
• Eye Scream: There's an FMV devoted to a decapitated head with its eyes missing, and said eyes glow as if they were opening. And you find the eyes in a sealed box. Even with the eyes back in, it's not a pretty sight.
  • Eyeless Face
  • Slightly more subtly, the electrocution scene above, and just where the current is being applied...
• Fan Service: You get some of the main character in the background as the credits roll in the good ending. The creators even have a wallpaper of it on their website named "Fan Service." The other endings... not so much.
• Final Girl: Subverted - Sarah killed everyone else.
• Gainax Ending: The comedy ending. The devs even lampshade it, with the "You were confused by the Comedy Ending" message.
  • This review by The Gaming Pixie had some fun with that one.
• Have a Nice Death: The messages for the "death endings", enough said.
• It Came From the Fridge: Partway through the game, a fridge that emits poisonous gas appears in the central chamber. Failing to deal with it appropriately results in one of the death endings.
• Jump Scare
• Karma Meter: *COUGH*BLACKBOARD*COUGH*
• Mobile Maze: One of the most, if not the most, terrifying ones ever.
• Mind Screw: The story is...vague on some points.
• Multiple Endings: Several endings, that result in either Sarah dying or her escaping... And the latter has a few variants. There's also the bonus comedy ending.
• Name's the Same: "The White Chamber" with caps refers to one of the sequels to The Crimson Room.
• Never One Murder: Try the entire freaking crew!
• No OSHA Compliance: The doors leading out into space and a perfectly accessible rotating fan. Who the hell designed this space station?
  • The former is justified by Arthur freaking with your mind. The latter...not so much!
• Only Sane Man: If the comedy ending is anything to go by, everyone on the crew but Sarah was an unhinged weirdo.
• Precision F-Strike: If you try the laser cutter on the protagonist's shackles while she's being shocked to death, you get this.
• Press X to Die: The "Fell Through Space" and "Decayed" endings. The former also falls under Too Dumb to Live.
• Quest for Identity: In the beginning, the protagonist has amnesia. After The Reveal, it all comes flooding back to her.
• Reality Warper: It's implied that Arthur might have become one after fusing with the artefact, explaining how he keeps Sarah in a loop and causes all the various hellish scenarios on the station.
• Red Herring: The Fire Extinguisher and Soda Can don't do anything.
  • These items are both red. Coincidence, or a subtle form of Lampshade Hanging?
  • Also, the spam e-mail really is just spam. You are NOT the pop singer; you were in fact a scientist and member of the crew.
• The Reveal: Sarah murdered the entire crew to gain the artefact's power, and Arthur forced her into the nightmare to see if she could redeem herself.
• Room Full of Crazy: This pops up whenever the Dark World occurs. The red writing is everywhere.
• Scary Surprise Party: The comedy ending. Somehow.
• Sequel Hook: In the good ending, the Artefact isn't gone...
• Shout-Out: The MES console is a blatant reference to the NES, and Gabe and Tycho make a cameo in a retro gaming mag, apparently still living and running a galactic gaming store. And written inside the lid of the sealed box is the phrase "Where we're going we won't need eyes."
  • The sealed box also contains a pair of eyeballs! Not only is that serious Squick, but it clearly references that one scene (or is it scenes?) from Event Horizon.
  • Speaking of which, the entire game, from the setting to the atmosphere to the suspiciously familiar fan room, is so reminiscent of Event Horizon that it teeters on a fine line between homage and ripoff.
  • The magazine also sponsors "Say My Name", the new single by The Helmeted Impostors. Also, the Italian version of the note for the robot color code is about Vogon poetry. Any other language exclusive shout outs?
• Solve the Soup Cans: Lampshaded. The protagonist has to collect a set of body parts including one she lops off herself (and it's not pretty, either), and assemble them on a bed. Once this is done, the protagonist wonders why she even did that in the first place. Then said parts actually come to life, fused together as if he wasn't dead in the first place, once she leaves the room. This is required to continue the plot.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option: At one point there is suddenly a horrific monster sitting in the middle of the console room, which has changed into a room full of crazy. The only way to move on to the next part of the game is to walk right up to it and get skewered through the chest, only to wake up in the crew quarters afterwards.
• Surreal Horror
• Unfinished Business: Arthur practically becomes one with the artefact and forces Sarah through a loop that will only be broken by redemption. The portrait used to show that he is speaking in the titular white chamber is his corpse.
• You Shouldn't Know This Already: The color code to control the robot. You know that eyeless head you have to collect? Enter it before you get the note and the room camera will show that eyeless face, glaring at you.
  • If you dare look closely, you will see the words "NOT YET" on the spaces where the eyes should be!
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Both subverted and played straight.
• You Wake Up in a Room: In a glowing coffin (pictured above), to be more specific.