The Antichrist has won, the world has ended. Time to make some choices.
The Antichrist has risen, and reigns over Earth. For Catherine, the final straw is when his demonic minions kidnap her daughter Lucy. By sheer luck, she had once saved the life of a local video store owner that turned out to be Chronos, the God of Time, and it's now time to cash in the favor he owes her. He offers his assistance, but the Antichrist's powers interfere with his own, and all he can offer is the chance to travel back in time to one of two key points in history in order to interrupt the rituals that gave the Antichrist power: one in Kyoto, 1986, and one in Wyoming, 1968. This one choice then branches into more choices, and Catherine and Lucy's ultimate fate is now in flux...
C.H.A.I.N.G.E.D. is a freeware anthological horror game by the HauntedPS1 Community, released for PC on June 6, 2023. The game always starts at the same place, but every time the game's narrative splits, each choice is created by a different developer, with no knowledge of what any of the other developers contributing to the project have done aside from what's immediately proceeded them. Depending on the route, the genre could change to a point-and-click adventure, a role-playing-game, a first-person-shooter, and so on. This game can be downloaded here
, and this game's predecessor C.H.A.I.N. can be downloaded here.
This game is not to be confused with Changed, which is about a person having to survive being assimilated by synthetic animals.
T.R.O.P.E.S.:
- All Just a Dream:
- At the end of the "Attic" game, Catherine wakes up in her home with Lucy safe and sound.
- "Damien't" ends with a similar scenario, before it's subverted with the reveal that Chronos actually sent Catherine to a different, happier reality to live out the rest of her days.
- The Antichrist: The main antagonist of the majority of routes is this. In the Kyoto timeline, the ritual is interfered with before he can obtain a stable physical form, while in the Wyoming timeline, he manifests as a man named Damien.
- Arc Symbol: Anchors are prominent in the very first segment at Chronos' store, with one used as a HUD to show where Catherine's looking, and another being etched into the front door. In the Omega Ending, Catherine's connection to the chains binding the multiverse manifests as a large red anchor that she can then use to kill Chronos, Themis, and/or the Antichrist.
- Back from the Dead: In "Executive Order," Catherine, Chronos, and Ezra are all murdered by cultists. The personification of Gaia however saves and revives her soul, giving her some weapons and powers on top. The "Damien't" ending has Chronos also coming back through time travel to stop Damien.
- Big Good: Themis presents himself as this, as his stated goal is to stop The Antichrist and Chronos from interfering with the countless timelines. That said, he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist at best.
- Cats Are Magic: Themis, the cat that Chronos owns, is shown to have powers of his own and assists Catherine in some of the story branches. He's later revealed to be the god of order and trying to stop the conflict and the corruption of Gaia.
- Climax Boss: In the Omega Ending, the player chooses to either kill Chronos or Themis with the Anchor of Fates, and a boss fight ensues depending on who they pick. The ending games that followup either decision are light on gameplay.
- Controllable Helplessness: After letting the Antichrist possess Catherine, he uses her body to meet up with his demon cohorts. Along the way, she unwillingly kills other wizards acting as Time Police, including Chronos.
- Cool Shades: Chronos is recognizable throughout his differing appearances by his green or teal-colored sunglasses.
- Damsel in Distress: Lucy is kidnapped in the first segment of the game, and spends the majority of most timelines as nothing more than a hostage that motivates Catherine's quest.
- Deader than Dead: In "Sunk Costs," Catherine is sent by Lucio to find the Anchor of Fates, which has the power to permanently kill and Ret-Gone a being from the timeline. She can choose to use it on Chronos or Themis.
- Demonic Possession: At the end of the "Kyoto, 1986" segment, Catherine's choice is whether or not to let herself be possessed by the Antichrist and give him a physical form in exchange for wealth, power, and reuniting with Lucy. Predictably, this does not go well.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: In the Kyoto timeline, it turns out that Chronos' cat is actually Themis, the Greek God of Order. In the Omega Ending, it also turns out that Themis is the Antichrist's divine counterpart, being the "God" fought in the Wyoming timelines, and the entity responsible for the multiverse Catherine ends up trapped in.
- Eye Scream: In the cabin that Catherine is sent to in Wyoming, she finds a pair of eyeballs belonging to a man named Isiah, who removed them himself at the command of the voices in his head. One of the endings has her meet him, or an angelic form of him, with Lucy commenting that his "eyes are weird."
- False Friend: In the Kyoto timeline, if Catherine chooses to fight the Antichrist instead of accepting Demonic Possession, it turns out that Chronos set her up in order to doom the timeline and use the resulting temporal energy to remake the world in his image. This trope gets lampshaded by Themis, who points out to Catherine that she ends up fighting him in most timelines when she insists that they're friends.
- Fate Worse than Death:
- In the Wyoming branch, any of the souls that are killed by God's angels are turned into energy to fuel its machinations and suffer in eternal agony. Damien tells Catherine that his kidnapping of Lucy was meant as a Mercy Kill (which Catherine disagrees with), while Themis himself says that he absorbs these souls because he needs to stop both Chronos and Damien from interfering with the timeline. In one of the endings, it's greatly implied that Catherine and Lucy meet this fate.
- In the Basement ending, Themis makes a deal with the Ouroboros to keep what remains of the universe along with Catherine and Lucy, telling the former that there will be some constraints. When Catherine finds Lucy, she's revealed to be stuck in a television with seemingly no way to reunite with each other.
- Framing Device: Every segment is represented as its own VHS tape being rented from Chronos' store, with controls and credits listed on the back of the tape sleeve.
- Fun with Acronyms:
- The game's title is an acronym for "Chronological Haunted Anomalous Interconnected Narrative - Guide Each Decision".
- In one branch of the Kyoto route, it turns out that Lucy was captured because of a power within her that, fittingly, has the acronym of L.U.C.Y.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: In the Omega Ending, Lucio tells Catherine that she's stuck in one, being brought back to Chronos' shop and forgetting what she went through every time she reaches an "ending", resulting in a multiverse.
- Heel–Face Turn: Eirik pulls this in "Blue Light" and assists Cathrine in banishing the Antichrist for good, being reborn as her future husband, Ezra.
- In Spite of a Nail: One choice has effectively the same outcome: at the end of "Good Faith," no matter if the player chooses to save Ezra or retrieve the God Gun, Ezra will still die at the hands of the cultists. Choosing to try to save him will get Catherine and Chronos killed, and later brought Back from the Dead.
- Joke Ending: While the tone of endings can vary depending on the developers working on each part, "The Golf War" is noted as one in-universe. In it, the Antichrist empowers himself with the power of the United States Government and fights Catherine in the void remaining at the end of a destroyed universe, then an off-model Lucy appears and she and Catherine go get hamburgers together. Later, when learning of this ending in the "Sunk Costs" segment of the Omega Ending, the god Themis states that it was the hardest to decipher and Catherine asks if it was just supposed to be some kind of twisted joke.
- Kill the God: An option to kill God pops up a few times in the Wyoming timeline, usually resulting in a Downer Ending. She also has the option of killing Chronos, the god of time, and Themis in the ghost branch.
- The Lost Lenore: Ezra, Catherine's late husband, who was killed by cultists before the events of the game. She is reunited with him in "Damien't."
- Mama Bear: The game starts with Catherine seeking the help of the god of time in order to fight the Antichrist and rescue her daughter Lucy. No matter what happens in the various timelines, including fighting even more powerful deities, saving Lucy is nearly always Catherine's top priority.
- Multiple Endings: The game's download page boasts that it has a total of 20 endings, 16 of which are obtained during the main game and 4 locked behind the Omega Ending route.
- No Ending: Letting Cathrine go after defeating Chronos will show a black screen, with a message telling the player that there is nothing else to see here without her.
- Omega Ending: The ability to Take a Third Option at the start of the game is only unlocked after every other path has been unlocked.
- Opposite-Sex Clone: In the Omega Ending, the strange man that appears in the video store, Lucio, claims to be a version of Catherine's daughter Lucy from an alternate dimension. When Catherine is initially skeptical, he points out that in a world where the Antichrist and Chronos exist, alternate dimensions isn't that much of a stretch.
- Redemption Earns Life: The Omega Ending reveals that Ezra, Catherine's husband in the Wyoming timelines, was originally the demon Eirik from the Kyoto timelines. By having a change of heart and helping Catherine in one of those endings, he was able to reincarnate into a human.
- Shout-Out: There's a cardboard stand-up advertising a film called "Man Car Time" in Chronos' video store, which is designed after the cover art for the original Back to the Future.
- Something Only They Would Say: In the Omega Ending, Catherine asks Lucio to prove that he's really an alternate version of her daughter Lucy by revealing Catherine's maiden name. Not only does Lucio state it, he knows that Catherine hates that name because of things her father had done, so Catherine completely believes him.
- Stable Time Loop:
- In one of the endings on the Wyoming branch, Catherine ends up stuck in an alternate timeline and is so desperate to reunite with Lucy that she kidnaps her from that timeline's Catherine, leading that Catherine to blame the Antichrist and go seek Chronos' help.
- In the Omega Ending, it turns out that Themis tried killing Chronos in the past in order to stabilize the multiverse created from Catherine's choices, but Catherine saved him, enabling her to cash in the favor at the start of the game that creates the multiverse.
- Story Branching: At the end of every segment, Catherine is offered a choice between two options, each of which leads to a new segment by different developers.
- Take a Third Option: If the Omega Ending is unlocked, then in the first segment, instead of meeting Chronos and deciding to travel back to one of two points in time, Catherine encounters Lucio, a version of her daughter from another dimension. He then shows Catherine the chains holding the multiverse together, and gives her a chance to end the cycle permanently instead of forever fighting to save her daughter.
- Third Eye: The cat that Chronos owns has a third eye, and is later shown to have magical powers as well.
- Time Travel: The first segment starts in modern day, and the first choice is to have Chronos warp Catherine to either 1986 or 1968. Depending on your choices, further time travelling can occur, such as returning to the present or going back to the beginning of life itself.
- Undying Loyalty: In one ending of the Wyoming branch, Catherine's life is saved by a version of her daughter from another timeline that's fully empowered with Gaia energy. In the Omega Ending, Themis notes that, while there are no other records of that version of Lucy, it's clear that she's willing to go just as far to protect her mom as her mom has been going to protect her.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Antichrist and Chronos try to justify their various deeds as this, depending on the game. Themis is a more straight example, justifying his antagonistic actions as trying to stop the other two from tampering with The Multiverse and corrupting its life force. Catherine can choose whether or not she accepts that excuse.
- Wham Episode: If the reveal of the "ghost branch" wasn't enough of one already, "Sunk Costs" has the "God" that Catherine met in the Wyoming path reveal himself to be Themis, Chronos' cat from the Kyoto timeline, and tells her that he's on Catherine's side. To prove himself, he set up television screens that show and give more info about the other games and storylines thus far.
- You Owe Me: The plot is kicked off by Catherine approaching Chronos, the god of time, to cash in the favor of having saved his life in the past. Said events have revealed to have caused a Stable Time Loop, as stated in that trope above.
