I’m strapped to a rolling office chair with a ticking timer in a huge scary building

The office seems to be empty save for a grinning little girl who yells “hey mister, wake up!” in what sounds like amateur Simmish, then immediately vanishes around the corner. The building consists of grainy, glass-walled compartments lined with illuminated facades displaying kanji letters, arranged along a central corridor. I think I’m on the ninth floor.

It is all, dare I say, a bit liminal. The walls and desks have the texture of ash. The fluorescent ceiling tubes taper off and vanish into the black interiors of mirrored alcoves at either end of the corridor. There are piercing red bulbs here and there that could indicate the best route to the exit, and what I think are deactivated elevators with parted doors.

It would probably feel less eerie if I were more mobile. As I may have mentioned, I’m taped to a chair. To move, I have to wiggle my body mass frantically with the WASD keys, while peering around with the mouse controls. I’ve never been taped to an office chair IRL, somewhat to my surprise, but Chairbound feels like a pretty authentic and hi-fi recreation of the experience, in that getting anywhere is maddening. Oh and yes, there’s that LED timer strapped to my chest, its 10-minute countdown considerately angled upward. This creates a certain urgency.

I have attempted to beat Chairbound four times so far. Each attempt began with my squirming and writhing my way out into the central corridor, in pursuit of the weird little girl. There is always a squeaky rubber duck on a desk nearby. If I don’t mind sacrificing a few seconds, I can trundle up close and seize the duck in my left or right hand. Then I can squeeze it, bringing a note of comedy to my tragic plight. It may be the duck has some other, grander role to play in this epic drama, or it may be that the developers/my captors have placed it there to fuck with me. I strongly suspect the duck to be a test of my character.

Once the question of whether to take the duck is resolved, I have to worry about getting down the stairs at the end of the hall. There may be other stuff to find in the other rooms, perhaps even a strategically hidden pair of scissors, but when you have a timer strapped to your chest, it’s hard to think about collectibles.

Each staircase has an access ramp that looks convenient but invariably tips me over when I reach the bottom, and when you flip over in Chairbound, you’re toast. The first time it happens, I attempt to jerk myself across the landing to the next staircase down, hoping that I might tumble rightway up, but it’s impossible to build momentum while prone. I contemplate waiting for the timer to run down, then take the coward’s way out and hit the restart button.

The next two attempts go much the same way. On the fourth try, I make an important discovery, so epochal and historic that I am going to swathe it in spoiler tags. There’s another, unoccupied rolling chair I can shunt down the ramp to serve as a buffer, breaking my slide and stopping me falling over. Armed with this knowledge, I can brave the mysteries of the eighth floor. What will I find there? Let’s reconvene to discuss my progress tomorrow, 1st August, when Chairbound releases on Steam.