Tuesday, 9 December 2014

One Chance



If you only had a few days left to live, what would you do? One Chance poses this question with this simplistic yet sinister presentation that does a surprisingly good job of capturing the players' attention and of keeping them playing until the bitter end. The plot is as follows: Dr. Pilgrim (above) has developed a drug that has cured all forms of cancer, but as the celebrations die down, it is discovered that this drug has started killing people all over the world and shows no signs of slowing down. So what does the doctor do with his (and many others') last day on Earth? Does he try and find a cure? Does he spend the last few days with his family? Or does he go crazy and party his pixelated socks off? Well the choice is up to the player. But choose wisely, because those decisions will affect how the game finishes. But never mind, because you can just reload the game and start again if it goes tits-up, right? Wrong. Try and start again and you will only be able to see how the world is after effect of the choices you have made. The game is called One Chance, after all.

The recipe for this game could be described as heaps of moody music, a generous helping of philosophy and a dash of point and click to hold it all together. As is customary for me in any game where I have to make choices, I always try and do the right thing, so I tried to find the cure to the disease that is killing everybody, and I managed to do so (although this only involved me choosing to work, not actually doing anything of skill), however, it seems as though I was a tad too late, as the only survivors were Dr. Pilgrim and his young daughter. However, I know from other players' experiences that a few different outcomes are possible. The game can be slightly unfair at points, for example, I missed a days work because I visited the rooftop instead of going to the lab and I saw a co-worker jump off the building (why I couldn't have just gotten on with the work after visiting the rooftop I don't know), but overall, this game is far more engaging than you would expect from a Flash game and it's great discussing different experiences with other people.

Standout Moment: Refreshing the page and seeing the world as you left it.

*I have actually played the game twice, the first time was a couple of years ago and on a different internet connection. I'm not sure which of these was the contributing factor but I know it is possible to just play the game again on a different website anyway, seeing as it is on a lot more now. I don't think this is really in the spirit of the game, though.