Once Chance...

One Chance, by awkwardsilencegames.

This is superb. 


Let's say the world has seven days left, seven days until every living cell on Earth will die. What would you do? What if you were the scientist who accidentally created the virus that will kill everyone on the planet, including your loved ones? You'd only get one shot to get it right, to make those decisions. It's a stunningly simple premise, and an infuriating one at that. 
In One Chance, a simple, side-scrolling adventure by awkwardsilencegames, you really only get one chance. You've got six days, and every day goes by in the blink of an eye. Do you stay at home or go to work to continue to try to find a cure? Do you sleep with a co-worker? The world is ending after all. Or do you say, "Fuck it!" and spend the day with your daughter at the park? 


At the week's close, you might be dead, you might be alive. Did you make the right decision? You won't really know, because it's over. You don't get another shot. 


You don't even need to play the game to guess there's plenty of angered comments to peruse... but in the words of the brains behind it, "You bastards will have to pry this game out of my cold dead hands before I put a replay feature in."


One Chance is bleak, thoughtful, haunting. The music is superb, conjuring a mood that is not only ominous, but slightly urgent and certainly melancholy. 


All the reasons I've named above that intrigued me and made me love this game might drive some people away. It's not a fun game in the same way that oh, say, Robot Unicorn Attack (ha) is, but its merit lies elsewhere. Mostly in the story, the idea, the mood, as well as the fact that it makes you really wonder what would matter to you in the last six days of your life. 


Go play!