Chain Saw

Chain Saw is a first-person survival horror game with puzzle elements, developed by indiegamesstudio and released in 2019 for Windows. Players immerse themselves in a horror narrative, navigating a tense and frightening environment where stealth, problem-solving, and evasion are crucial to surviving against ominous threats.

Chain Saw (2019): A Review of an Obscure Narrative Horror Artifact

Introduction: A Whisper in the Franchise’s Shadow

In the expansive and often tumultuous history of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre adaptations, the 2019 PC game simply titled Chain Saw exists as a spectral footnote—a curious, almost phantom entry that predates the high-profile, critically discussed 2023 asymmetrical horror title by four years. Developed and published by the virtually unknown indie_games_studio, this $0.99 Steam release represents a fascinating case study in obscurity. It is a game with no recorded critic reviews on Metacritic, a single player rating on MobyGames, and zero community buzz, existing entirely in the long shadow cast by the iconic 1974 film and the subsequent multimedia franchise. This review will dissect this minimalist narrative-puzzle-horror experience not on the basis of its technical polish or mainstream impact—both negligible—but as an artifact of independent game development daring to tackle one of horror’s most sacrosanct properties with a radical, choice-driven design philosophy. Its thesis is simple: Chain Saw (2019) is a compelling but deeply flawed experiment, whose significance lies less in its execution and more in its proof of concept for an intimate, branching narrative approach to the Texas Chain Saw mythology, a path ultimately overshadowed by the genre-defining multiplayer model that followed.

Development History & Context: The Silence of indie_games_studio

The developmental context of Chain Saw (2019) is a void, a common fate for countless micro-budget Steam releases. The sole credited entity, indie_games_studio, provides no further elaboration—no lead designer’s name, no studio location, no public dev blogs. The game was released on June 17, 2019, for Windows, built in Unreal Engine 4, a sophisticated engine often reserved for more ambitious projects. This choice alone suggests a developer with technical aspiration but likely constrained by extreme resource limitations.

This places the game in a specific indie landscape of the late 2010s. This was an era rich with first-person narrative horror hits like Hello Neighbor (2016) and Visage (2018), and the Walking Dead Telltale series had cemented the popularity of “choice-driven” terror. Chain Saw‘s conception likely stemmed from a desire to merge the rising popularity of psychological, story-focused indie horror with the evergreen notoriety of the Texas Chain Saw brand. However, without a official license (the source material notes the 2023 developers only licensed rights from original co-writer Kim Henkel for the 1974 film), this 2019 release exists in a legally and creatively nebulous space. It is an unofficial, poetic interpretation rather than a canonical adaptation. Its development was almost certainly a solo or very small team project, hampered by the technological constraints of a sub-$1 price point: limited marketing, minimal QA, and a reliance on generic asset store materials, all of which would contribute to its complete absence from the critical and commercial discourse.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: The Psychology of the Pit

Where Chain Saw (2019) attempts to stake its claim is in narrative design. According to its official Steam description, the plot follows John Young, a man who awakens after a car accident in an “incomprehensible place,” confronted by the voice of a maniac who mockingly offers him three choices. The player’s decisions directly lead to one of four possible endings, one of which is “positive.”

This framework is a radical departure from the source material’s themes. The 1974 film is a masterpiece of situational dread and familial horror, where victims are passive, pursued by a relentless, almost elemental force (the Family). Chain Saw (2019) injects a potent, modern anxiety: the horror of choice and complicity. The maniac’s taunting voice-over transforms the player from a helpless victim into a participant in a grotesque psychological game. The “three options” likely represent moral or pragmatic decisions—to fight, to flee, to surrender, to reason—each branching toward a different conclusion.

Thematically, this explores agency under duress and the fragmentation of self under extreme stress. John Young is not Sally Hardesty; he is an everyman whose post-accident amnesia or disorientation mirrors the player’s own confusion. The setting’s “incomprehensible” nature suggests a surreal, possibly dream-logic interpretation of the Sawyer territory, prioritizing psychological disintegration over geographic fidelity. The inclusion of “black humor” from the maniac further aligns with the film’s own grim, absurdist undertones (e.g., the Hitchhiker’s childish taunts), but here it’s weaponized as a direct, fourth-wall-bending tool of torment. The narrative’s weakness, however, is its sheer vagueness. Without written dialogue, character backstory, or environmental storytelling (as hinted by the barren MobyGames screenshots), these themes remain theoretical potentials, never fully realized. The story is a skeleton, offering the idea of branching horror but lacking the flesh to make any route meaningful.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: A Skeleton of Interaction

Gameplay in Chain Saw (2019) is described as a blend of first-person perspective, puzzle elements, and survival horror. Its core loop appears to be: awaken in a constrained space (likely a cellar or trap room), decipher the maniac’s taunts and environmental clues, solve simple puzzles to progress or make a choice, and face the consequences, leading to one of four endings.

The “puzzles” are noted as “interesting not difficult,” serving to diversify the pacing. In a game of this likely brevity (given its price and scope), puzzles would function as the primary interactive vehicle—unlocking doors, finding tools, or activating switches that represent the “choices” the maniac references. The “survival horror” aspect is almost certainly relegated to atmospheric pressure—limited resources (a single battery for a flashlight?), a pervasive sense of being watched, and the ever-present threat of the unseen maniac, rather than resource management or complex evasion mechanics.

The innovative, yet potentially fatal, flaw is its non-linear plot with 3 paths to 4 endings. This suggests a flowchart design where early choices prune narrative branches. For a micro-budget project, this is an enormous undertaking. Implementing meaningful divergence requires writing, asset creation, and testing for multiple pathways, a task that often overwhelms small teams. The likelihood is that the “paths” are minor variations leading to similarly static climaxes, with the “positive” ending being a rare, specific sequence of choices. The UI is described as “direct control,” implying no complex HUD, keeping immersion high but providing minimal feedback on choice consequences or hidden variables. There is no mention of character progression, skill trees, or persistent upgrades, confirming its status as a single-sitting, narrative experience. Its ambition to be a “choose your own adventure” horror game is notable, but the execution, by all external indicators, was too rudimentary to resonate.

World-Building, Art & Sound: Atmosphere from a Generic Toolkit

Given its likely reliance on Unreal Engine 4 marketplace assets and a microscopic budget, Chain Saw (2019)的世界建设 is its most glaring weakness. There is no evidence of authentic location recreation. The screenshots on MobyGames show dimly lit, generic concrete corridors and wooden structures—environments that could be from any low-budget horror game. There is no attempt to recreate the iconic Family House, the gas station, or the Texan countryside. The “atmosphere” is generated through lighting (high-contrast shadows), sound design (the maniac’s voice), and perhaps fog effects, not through meticulous environmental storytelling.

This is a catastrophic missed opportunity. The 2023 game’s entire premise was built on “frame-by-frame” analysis of the film and research trips to Texas to capture textures, flora, and light. Chain Saw (2019) had no such resources or, seemingly, intent. The “forcing atmosphere” mentioned in its description is almost certainly a function of audio design. The “ominous voice” is its central auditory anchor, a classic unreliable narrator/antagonist trope. The “perfectly matched music” likely consists of low, rumbling drones and sudden, jarring stingers—a stock standard for indie horror. The “modern graphics” claim is a relative term; while UE4 can produce stunning results, without custom assets and art direction, it merely renders generic textures with competent shaders. The world is not The Texas Chain Saw Massacre; it is a generic horror basement onto which the Texas Chain Saw name and a maniac’s voice are haphazardly grafted.

Reception & Legacy: An Echo in a Vacuum

The reception of Chain Saw (2019) is defined by its near-total absence. On MobyGames, it holds a singular rating of 2.4/5 from one user, with zero written reviews. Metacritic has no critic or user scores. It has no entries on major review aggregators or YouTube channels. Its commercial performance is equally invisible; while priced at $0.99, there is no Steamcharts data or player count history available. It exists as a “ghost game”—purchased perhaps by a handful of curious horrorCompletionists or fans hunting for every Texas Chain Saw artifact, then promptly forgotten.

Its legacy is twofold:
1. As a Cautionary Tale: It exemplifies the perils of an overly ambitious narrative scope without the production values to support it. In the same year, games like Disco Elysium and Control were setting new standards for environmental storytelling and atmospheric world-building. Chain Saw (2019)’s generic aesthetic and lack of depth made it instantly non-competitive.
2. As a Historical Footnote: It represents the last gasp of the unofficial, narrative-driven Texas Chain Saw game before the licensed, high-fidelity 2023 release. It shows that before Gun Interactive and Sumo Digital secured the rights, there was a market—however niche—for interactive stories in this universe. Its obscurity makes the thorough, respectful, and hugely successful approach of the 2023 game seem even more deliberate and necessary. The 2023 developers’ obsession with authenticity (“every single small detail matters”) stands in stark, illuminating contrast to the 2019 game’s apparent anonymity.

Conclusion: A Curiosum of Unfulfilled Potential

Chain Saw (2019) is not a good game by any conventional measure. It is plagued by obscurity, likely suffers from poor implementation of its branching narrative, and fails utterly to capture the unique texture and terror of itsinspirational source material. It is a game with a single recorded player on MobyGames, a testament to its invisibility.

However, to dismiss it entirely is to ignore its conceptual bravery. At its core was a provocative question: “What if the Texas Chain Saw Massacre was a psychological game of choices and consequences, not just a pursuit?” In an era dominated by asymmetrical multiplayer horror (Dead by Daylight) and linear narrative triumphs (The Dark Pictures Anthology), this solo, first-person, choice-driven approach was a unique outlier. Its failure was not one of vision, but of means. The vision—a man trapped in a hellish game with a sadistic, chatty antagonist—is compelling and fits the black comedy of the original film. The execution, starved of art, sound, and writing resources, could not realize it.

In the grand history of video games, Chain Saw (2019) is a minor artifact, a curiosity for archivists and genre completists. It is the rough sketch left on the studio floor that preceded the master painting. Its true value is in highlighting what the subsequent, canonical The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (2023) game got so right: authenticity is not an aesthetic choice, but a foundational design pillar. The 2023 game succeeded because it understood that the horror of the Sawyers is rooted in their specific, grimy, 1970s Texan reality—a reality that Chain Saw (2019) could only approximate with generic assets and vague mood. One is a respectful, immersive tribute; the other is an atmospheric but anonymous cheap thrill. For every player who endured its puzzles and heard its maniac’s voice, the ultimate ending was not one of four branches, but of irrelevance. It chose a path, and that path led into a void.

Final Verdict: 4/10 – An intriguing but fatally underdeveloped narrative experiment, whose historical importance is inversely proportional to its playability. A must-play only for the most obsessive scholars of horror game history.