A Chair in a Room : Greenwater

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A Chair in a Room : Greenwater
A chair in a room greenwater1.jpg
Information
VR/AR VR
Developer Wolf & Wood Interactive Ltd
Publisher Wolf & Wood Interactive Ltd
Platform SteamVR
Device HTC Vive
Operating System Windows
Type Full Game
Genre Adventure, Indie, Simulation, Horror, VR
Input Device Tracked motion controllers
Play Area Standing, Room-Scale
Game Mode Single Player
Language English
Review Very Positive
Release Date Apr 5, 2016
Price $24.99
App Store Steam
Website http://www.achairinaroom.com
Infobox Updated 09/15/2016
A Chair in a Room : Greenwater is a VR App.

Review

A Chair in a Room: Greenwater is a strangely literal title, because the game starts out as you waking up in an enclosed room - with little more inside than a chair in the room - hence the name of the game! Don’t make the mistake of believing this is just a quick one of those games that tries to show off what VR can do; oh no! This here is a first person, story-based, horror game; all genres that intertwine with one another incredibly well, especially when you put them into a VR environment.

As far as story goes, with games like this they are incredibly important and to expunge any potential spoilers, I’m going to keep this as short and sweet as I possibly can. So, as previously mentioned you wake up in a room (with a chair in it); alas you have absolutely no idea how you got there or why you’re there. To figure out this big mystery, you’re going to need to go back through a whole host of different, terrifying memories to figure out what in the world is going on here! These memories of yours are going to give your heart a good steady kick every now and again, because this game doesn’t hold back on its horror elements - something I truly appreciate as a horror fan.

Gameplay is what you can expect from your typical first person horror game, but in VR, that feeling amplifies the terrifying atmosphere exponentially. After all, when I’m in the middle of rifling through some folders to figure out what’s going on, the second I hear a noise the last thing I’m ever going to want to do is turn my head around; not when there could be something behind me. What A Chair in a Room does well with the horror elements though is it takes them at a steady pace, building up the tension with each creak of a floorboard and every slow opening of a door; until you’re a puddle of your former self. Simply put, there’s no other way I can explain the incredible amount of tension you feel in this game, all thanks to the excellent atmosphere and stellar VR controls.

To keep things interesting from time-to-time, the game differentiates from your typical walking simulator and throws in a few puzzles for the player to solve; some being pretty easy and some being not so. Thankfully, the puzzles - while they are a focus - they don’t get in the way of the story or the atmosphere; if it did either of those I would have to be a little disappointed in the game, but I’m pleased to say that hasn’t occurred.

When looking at the game’s world design and general aesthetics, the game does a great job with the first half and a good job of the second half. The reason I say this is because the environments in the game are creepy, well-designed, and completely add to the atmosphere and tension that game is constantly hyping up. Visually, the game does look good, but the problem I have is the fact that anything resembling a person looks like a weird-clay construction. When you look down at your hands, they have some nice detail to them, but it does look a lot like Surgeon-Simulator and looking over at other NPC’s in the game, they look pretty similar to that of a blob, which is a little disheartening.

Overall, A Chair in a Room: Greenwater does pretty much everything you could actually want out of a VR horror game. The atmosphere and tension is completely top notch and it doesn’t slow down until the very last seconds of the game. Puzzles are an integral part of the game, but they don’t get in the way of what’s important in the game. The story starts off quite intriguing, and does get a little bit transparent after spending some time inside the game; but it doesn’t exactly detract from the game too much or the enjoyment of the story and its experience.

Aesthetically the game looks good, but as previously mentioned the NPC’s look like clay blobs, and that quickly takes away from some of the serious factors of this game. Honestly, though, for a game that was a launch title for the HTC Vive, you’ve got pretty much everything you want out of a VR horror game, with very little problems following it.

Description

A Chair in a Room: Greenwater is a tense Virtual Reality horror game set in America’s Deep South. Drawing on elements of Southern Gothic and using settings of derelict towns, run-down motels and murky, decaying swamps, A Chair in a Room will take you through an investigation of institutional corruption, religious immorality and murder, which can only be unlocked by searching deep within your own psyche.

A calibration room will allow you get comfortable in VR but once you call the elevator, you begin your story as patient no. 6079 in The Greenwater Institute, with no recollection of who you are or what you did to be here. Dark visions bring your lucidity into question and only the doctor’s supply of medication can suppress those who wish to haunt you.

Gameplay is a seamless weave of interaction and narrative that wraps exploration and tense horror in rich environmental storytelling to create something that is unique to VR.

The story is broken down into six chapters of around 20 to 30 minutes in length to allow for intervals in play while enjoying the story.

Features

System Requirements

Windows

Minimum

  • OS: Windows 7 SP1 64 bit or newer
  • Processor: Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD R9 290 equivalent or greater
  • Storage: 3 GB available space

Setup Instructions

Images and Videos