- Name
- The Chinese Room
- Abbreviation
- Founded
- 1 January 2007
- Location
- Brighton,East Sussex,England
- Website
- http://www.thechineseroom.co.uk/
- Aliases
- thechineseroom
The Chinese Room
Brighton,East Sussex,England
An independent developer based in Brighton, UK. thechineseroom started as a research project at the University of Portsmouth, funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, with the mandate of researching new ideas in the field of storytelling and gameplay in first-person gaming.
Company Images Related Pages
Overview
Under the leadership of Creative Director Dan Pinchbeck (Person), the studio created 3 mods. Antlion Soccer, a multiplayer deathmatch mod for Half-Life 2, Concientious Objector, a Doom 3 (Game) mod in which the player is sent to Mars equipped with a shotgun loaded with only rubber bullets and lastly the studio released the Half-Life 2 mod Dear Esther (Game). Dear Esther became a cult hit, amassing over 100,000 downloads. In 2009, in collaboration with Robert Briscoe of LittleLostPoly, work on a remake began. In 2010 an agreement with Valve was reached to use the latest version of the Source engine and release the title on Steam (Concept). The game was released to critical acclaim and commercial success on February 14 2012, selling over 50,000 copies in it's first week on sale. In 2009 during development of Dear Esther, the studio also released a fourth mod called Korsakovia. An experimental horror game, Korsakovia relied on a nonsensical story, level designs that did not conform to the traditional expectations of architecture or physics, feeding the player false informations and pitting the player against unpredictable enemies lacking any human qualities. Built using the Source engine, the mod is as of now unusable following an update to the engine that broke the code though the studio has said that certain assets and designs may be recycled in future releases. With production and publication provided by Frictional Games (Company), thechineseroom released Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, a sequel to 2010's critically acclaimed survival horror game Amnesia: The Dark Descent, on September 10, 2013. The studio is currently working on a game called Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. The title utilizes CryEngine 3 (Concept) and will be exclusively available on the Playstation 4.
Key Figures
- Dan Pinchbeck (Person) - Creative Director
- Jessica Curry (Person) - Co-Director, Composer
- Gavin Wade (Person) - Associate Producer
- Ben Andrews - Concept Artist
Games
Developed Games
View all developed games
Dear Esther (Game)
An unconventional Source-engine mod that features a melancholic atmosphere. Originally a university research project, it experiments by removing most typical player interactions, while seeking to still create a strong player experience. It was released as a standalone experience in 2012.
Published Games
View all published gamesNo games found