As we see games evolve, we find that our experiences within them become more realistic. And yet, there are basic tenets of gaming that still are determined to defy reality: monsters that drop money, treasure chests in the middle of nowhere, and last but not least, that ongoing fantasy world of being able to back up to your last save point and try again, no matter how poorly you planned your course of action.
What if you only had one chance to do it right?
Hit the jump for more thoughts on this interesting new game that asks us to do more than just start over.
New indie sidescroller One Chance (play here) from awkwardsilencegames presents you with just that opportunity. In it, you take the role of scientist John Pilgrim, who has come up with a cure for cancer that eradicates the cancerous cells within the human body. John is a hero, and the world champions his name as the papers publish the news. By day two, it's become clear that the cure not only destroys cancerous cells, but all other cells in the body too. And what once seemed like salvation has suddenly, overnight, because unintentional genocide.
Most interesting about the six days you have to take action within the game's time frame is that the creator of the game firmly states there is no replay feature. The comments on Newgrounds are full of people angry about it, and yet, he says the heart of the game is about facing the consequences of your own actions. For a gamer, that's a foreign concept. In fact, it's more a human life concept than something that belongs in a video game. Why, then, is it a part of One Chance?
It's easy enough to say that the creator of the game wanted to buck the system, or just piss off gamers by denying them what they are used to getting, but I think his statement is much simpler than that. One Chance is a depressing tale, and that seems to push many people away from it. However, it's also sure to shake you, make you think, and slow you down. In an age where we are constantly bombarded by social media, ways to delete and hide what we've said and done, and no real reason to think before we act, a game like this is a statement about the decisions we make, and how different our lives can be with as minor of a choice like going to work or staying home.
Several of John's choices present food for thought as well. Every day, he can go to work or stay home. His coworkers encourage him to be with his family as the situation worsens, but he can also ignore them and go to work anyway. He can sleep with one of his coworkers, since the world's about to end anyway. He can forget it all and take his daughter to the park. Each of these actions completely affects your last actions in this desolate few days before your world comes to a close.
Perhaps One Chance is overly dramatic. The chances of something like this happening seem more like a bad action/horror film than they do anything we could suffer in real life. However, that's likely beyond the point. There was a time when consequence in gaming was firmer, but since it "lessens the gaming experience" by frustrating the gamer, we see less and less of it these days.
We aren't accustomed to making hard decisions. We dislike consequence. Yet, I can't help but see a game like this as courageous by offering just that to us and asking us to cope with it. Perhaps we are too adjusted to the idea that any route is open to us. And while that's a lovely fantasy, it presents a softer gaming experience that may lull us into a sense of false safety. However, our strongest emotions are connected to consequences, choices, and loss, so by realistically asking us to look at those things and go through them even thought they may be depressing, they also engage us on a deeper level emotionally (something more and more games fail at these days).
One Chance asks us to experience it all as it really could be. And I think that's for the best.
Contest:
6:30 PM on 12.07.2010 | 
I seriously hope that you're joking. This game is not better than Heavy Rain. I have never played a game that made me care about the characters in it more than it did. Nor have I played a game that has multiple endings and yet has me entrenched in that whatever ending I got in the first playthrough is the real ending in my head forever.
I do like this game. It is very interesting and consequences of the actions is certainly greater. But I didn't feel for the characters more at all. The story wasn't anything special. It's just a more drawn out version of that game in which you have a choice to either shoot the guy tied to the post or not. Both are about being unable to undo what you did. This game obviously does that better, but that hardly qualifies it as better than something like Heavy Rain.
But I didn't limit myself to one playthrough like the creator intended so maybe I didn't "do it right." But I don't get the message here. I can't really say much without spoiling it but choosing to be with your family gives you the most random outcome. So was I NOT supposed to spend time with them? Because the workaholic ending is just as depressing.
Kinda cool how the creator doesn't allow you to replay.
not sure why i thought this, but, i played it through as i would if i was in the situation - if that makes any sense
On its own I don't get the big deal. Did anyone not save the world by working whenever they could? Cause that's the ending I got and don't really have any regrets.
...then when the game came out there was a trophy for getting all the endings. Lol
PS. The ending for Mother 3 was more effective.
I agree with you on that. This game didn't have...really a lot of emotion. But the ending is so vague it's as if nothing really happened at all.
Mother 3's ending (fuck, the whole game) connected with me on a significantly deeper level...Maybe it's the knowledge that you CAN'T change the outcome that makes it so powerful?
Actually it's exactly the opposite. The game makes a flash cookie in your cookies folder and if you've got it, you can never replay the game at the same place on the net. So please, don't chime in when you don't know what the hell you're talking about. This isn't a matter of saving, something you would know if you'd even played the game since it offers no saving.
Instead, this is you taking a look at the screenshot and shooting your mouth off without knowing what the fuck you're talking about. Kindly GTFO of this thread. Adults are talking about something we've experienced, not a screenshot we've passed instant judghement on.
I really liked this game and it's hardcore that there aren't any "good" way to finish the story. All the endings are saddening.
This will probably be blown off as hating on the game but trust me, if you played the other game you could tell that it's pretty much the exact same thing mechanics and design wise. Feels like they just took the coding of the other game and modded it around to make this.
What intrigued me most was that people very often seem to give up hope on the last day during the storyline where you are a total workaholic and your wife commits suicide on the... fourth day, I believe it is. On the final day, more than a few people decided that they'd mucked it all up somehow and actually chose to go to the park and die alongside their daughter rather than giving it one more shot.
It's an incredibly bleak look at things, and I wonder just how much the audience would be impacted if some gamers weren't genre savvy enough to realize that we can, in fact, win. I'll admit the only reason I kept on trucking was the stubborn realization that I'd done nothing wrong yet, despite the "You had one chance" message on the final day. If it were some other factor (or worse yet, random), I think I would have felt far bleaker had it not been a case of research = win.
This is still a very interesting game, and I can see how it could be expanded into an actual full game. If one were to expand each character and give Bioware-style dialogue trees to each character while presenting an incredibly challenging, yet ultimately rewarding series of minigames for the "research", this would sit firmly in my own personal "game of the year" contenders list.
Oh, and anyone who wants a second go... You can either track down the specific cookie and delete it (for those who know what that means), or you can delete your browsing history and delete ALL cookies, but bear in mind it'll kill off your high score or saves from any other flash games, i.e. Gemcraft, any of the dozen Angry Birds-style games.
That may have been the most round-about, unhelpful description of plagiarism I've ever seen. Can you at least come up with a title or something?
I said right in my post that I wish I could remember what it was. But the feeling I got while playing was like if someone took Super Mario Bros exactly, changed the sprites, and added in the new story. That's what I mean by rip off, not that it had the same premise (though they're both "art" games) but that the play and feel and everything about the game was exactly the same.
Same
And since someone mention Mother 3, that game moved me more then this 5 minute flash game...
Still some intriguing stuff though I guess...
Go Incognito on Google Chrome. Dunno what it does exactly, but I played it until I got the good ending XD
Are you referring to Every Day the Same Dream? Because that's the only game I can think of that was very similar but (arguably) better.
Regardless, I really enjoyed this game, and I actually was deeply moved at the wife's suicide. My only real issue is simply that, since I have gaming experience, I knew that I simply had to make no mistakes in order to get the happy ending. If after working every day nonstop with no mistakes you still failed, I think it would have made a better and larger impact. As it is it just felt like that ruined the whole "real-life simulation" sort of thing. I hope that was clear :/