Secret Chamber

Review by MrLipid
March 2005

Full Disclosure

As much as I enjoy playing computer games, I have, of late, gotten as much or more enjoyment out of modifying them. Apply a dash of ingenuity and it becomes possible to wander about without risk of death in Mob Enforcer, play Panic in the Park on something other than a Win3.1 machine or improve the odds a bit in Milo. Why play the game you bought when you can play the game you want?

Full Admission

Latest example? Secret Chamber. Never heard of it? Hardly surprising. It currently sells for $4.99 on the bargain rack at CompUSA. This 2004 title from Full Armor Studios is a clever and attractive twiddle puzzle that has been saddled with annoying arcade elements. Happily, those annoying arcade elements can be sent packing with a few surgical hex edits. Better still, those edits have been neatly wrapped up in a tiny patch called No Bugs 1.0, available here.

The Basics

The core puzzle in Secret Chamber is a model of simplicity. The player must open a series of locked doors to reach—what else?—the Secret Chamber. The locks consist of an array of jewels spread across what appears to be a wooden grid. A lock opens when the jewels in the grid are configured to match the pattern in a small frame on the lower left side of the screen. The rows can be shifted right and left and the columns up and down to move the jewels into position. Of course, moving a row or column means moving everything in that row or column, and that's where the fun begins. The higher the number of jewels, the more difficult it is to put them where they belong without accidentally moving something else out of its proper place. Simple, engaging, satisfying.

The main game screen is uncluttered and richly textured. What is supposed to be the beam of the player's flashlight reveals grain in the wooden jewel trays and highlights on the jewels. Music and sound effects offer more than a tip of the hat to Jewels of the Oracle and Gems of Darkness. Trays are dragged into place with the mouse. Given the horizontal and vertical moves the game requires, it's too bad that there is no option for controlling the jewel trays with the keyboard.

Stop Picking Your Mode!

Secret Chamber offers three modes: Story, Puzzle and Survival. In Story mode, one is told the tale of an inventive king as one unlocks doors to reveal his inventions. In Puzzle mode, one strives to match patterns with as few moves as possible. In Survival mode, one attempts to match patterns while swarms of scarab beetles "fuse" with the jewels. When, not if, the scarabs manage to fuse with all the jewels before the pattern has been matched, game over.

Of the three modes, Survival is the most successful. Its rules are very clear. It's the player against the scarabs, and the scarabs always win. The better the player, the longer it takes for the scarabs to win. Players are ranked by survival times.

Puzzle mode is less successful. It gives players, of all things, a letter grade for their efforts and, worse yet, no clear idea what determines that letter grade. As long as players save their game, there is no grade. Quit out of a game without saving and a grade appears. Solve the first puzzle in just a few moves, and one gets an F. This suggests the grade takes the total number of puzzles solved into account. Or maybe it divides the total number of moves by the total number of puzzles. Not clear. Not good.

Story mode is the least successful. It begins promisingly enough. Players match jewel patterns to unlock doors to reveal the inventions of the king. Then, at about level 13 or so, scarabs start streaming onto the screen and fusing with the jewels. So long, twiddle! Hello, arcade! If, as in Survival mode, the scarabs fuse with all the jewels before the pattern is complete, game over. And once the game is over, Secret Chamber deletes (!) the saved game file for that game. Talk about rough justice.

Happy Ending!

Applying the No Bugs 1.0 patch corrects this crime against contemplative twiddlers and allows Story mode to tell its story. Once modified, Story mode offers at least ten times the minimum daily adult requirement for pattern-matching puzzles. Let's just say the folks at Full Armor Studios were very generous about providing value for money. That generosity does not, however, extend to saved game slots. Secret Chamber sports only six.

There is no copy control on Secret Chamber. The game installs completely to the hard drive and does not require the CD to play.

For those curious about Full Armor Studios' other games, the Secret Chamber CD comes with ten-session demos of The Walls of Jericho, Manna Munchers and The Library of the Ages.

Full Patch Disclosure

Want to know what the patch actually does? It changes six values in the chamber0.apk file. All scarab_spawn_cap values are set to zero, all scarab_spawn_delta values are set to either zero or 0.0 and all scarab_spawn_base values are set to either -1 or zero. You can do this yourself with your trusty hex editor if you are so inclined.

The patch assumes a player has installed Secret Chamber in its default folder: C:\Program Files\Full Armor Studios\Secret Chamber. If Secret Chamber has been installed somewhere else, use the Browse button in No Bugs 1.0 to point the patch toward the Secret Chamber folder.

The Puzzle and Survival modes, while locked by default, can be played immediately by opening the user.cfg file in the Secret Chamber folder and changing puzzle_mode_unlocked=0 to puzzle_mode_unlocked=1 and survival_mode_unlocked=0 to survival_mode_unlocked=1. 

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Full Armor Studios
Publisher: Mumbo Jumbo
Release Date: 2004

Available for:

Four Fat Chicks Links

Player Feedback

Screenshots

System Requirements

Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP
DirectX 6 or later
Pentium II 300 MHz equivalent
64 MB RAM
8 MB DirectX 6 compatible video card
DirectX 6 compatible sound card
CD or DVD drive
16 MB free disk space
Mouse and keyboard

Where to Find It

Download from Reflexive Arcade $19.95
CD-ROM from
Mumbo Jumbo $9.99

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