Exploring the Haunted Mansion of Silver Chains
Last week, I was sent a review copy of Silver Chains, a horror game that came out yesterday on Steam.
Silver Chains follows a man named Peter who finds himself trapped in a strange mansion after crashing his car outside.
He quickly realizes the mansion is haunted, and begins searching for a way to escape.
The game is surprisingly linear early on, but once you get a few areas opened up and have access to all three floors, it allows for a bit more exploration. I liked the design of the mansion, because even though it has multiple floors, staircases are located conveniently enough that I never felt like I had to do a lot of running around to get where I wanted to go.
Now, there’s technically a monster you have no choice but to hide from. I say “technically” because it feels unnecessary. The monster’s appearances are scripted, and you’re almost always right next to a wardrobe to hide in.
Click for Silver Chains spoilersIf there’s one thing the monster helps with, it’s preparing the player for a more legitimate chase that happens at the end (although that section has its own problems, as you end up literally running in circles around the attic to avoid danger), but since the two are mechanically different, I don’t think it quite works.
Silver Chains also has jump scares, but it keeps them just sporadic enough to be effective, with the help of its great horror atmosphere.
Since you start out with most of the mansion being locked, yes, there are puzzles to solve to proceed. They’re fairly simple, although a few suffer from poor instructions. It also introduces an interesting feature partway through where you can use a special monocle to see supernatural hints, doors that don’t otherwise appear, etc.
The one thing I disliked about the gameplay was that you can’t manually save. Instead, you have to rely on auto-saves, and while you might think a game with only auto-saves would save after every key point, it doesn’t. There were multiple occasions where I took a break and came back to find I needed to do some puzzles over again.
As you explore, you’ll also find diary entries that help you piece together what happened in the past.
Silver Chains doesn’t have a groundbreaking story, but although it was predictable, at least it avoided the typical setup of the protagonist confronting a dark secret about his own past guilt, which has become so common in horror games I was pleasantly surprised that this one didn’t go there. The story did leave some questions, though, and a few more details would have gone a long way toward clearing things up.
Near the end of the game, it once again switches to a more linear progression, with even a few occasions where Peter simply falls unconscious and wakes up where the plot needs him to be. Some of this can be explained due to the supernatural forces at work, but I preferred the more exploration-driven style of the middle.
The whole thing only takes about four hours, which is both good and bad. On one hand, that’s a really short game. On the other hand, I feel the game’s formula would have outstayed its welcome if it lasted much longer.
In short, Silver Chains struggles at times, but it’s a decent horror game if you’re looking for something short and spooky.
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