Sawbuck Gamer

3:15am

All In Good Chair

Roll and lift your chair-y way to freedom in 3:15am.

By Matt Kodner • February 13, 2013

Sawbuck Gamer is our daily review of a free or cheap ($10 or less) game.

3:15am
Creators: Martin Fasterholdt and Tim Garbos
Platform: Browser
Price: Free

To the many perennially hunched over denizens of the internet, 3:15 a.m. is a familiar chapter in the holy book of Staying Up Too Late For No Damn Reason. It’s well past an acceptable bedtime but leaves just enough time to squeeze in another Scorsese movie before sunlight hits the window. However, little love ever goes out to the unsung hero of those long nights: the dependably comfy and ever-adjustable office chair. Finally, with 3:15am, there comes a game which puts you in the seat of such a champion—literally.

Giving new meaning to “armchair warrior,” you play as a chair looking for adventure. Your pneumatic adjustment system helps you overcome obstacles, like a table and filing cabinet, that block your path to freedom. Remember that lever beneath and a little to the left of your buns? The one that rockets you up and down in four-inch bursts of zero-gravity? It’s apparently good for more than just that—capable here of expanding near-infinitely—and functions as your main lifeline out of that achingly quiet apartment.

An entrant in the Nordic Game Jam, 3:15am clocks in on the shorter side, but it can take a while to get used to its method for forward momentum. As a reward for getting the hang of it, the game sports a psychedelic climax that stands in opposition to the apartment’s lonely hiss. Maybe you should give your poor chair a break the next time you find yourself feverishly clicking through the eighth page of Reddit on a weeknight.

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  • http://www.avclub.com/users/merve,96925/ Merve

    Without spoiling anything, re: the ending – What the fucking fuck?

    SPOILERS: Is that a chair funeral?

    • Chum Joely

      I finished this game and unlocked all of the achievements! Whooooo! (note, this result may have involved dividing by zero)
      We have a dead end hallway at my work where the broken office equipment goes…  and it looks quite a bit like that chair graveyard, actually. So you may well be right.

    • Zach_Annon

      I typically start to play Sawbuck Gamer games without reading the review, so I was totally not expecting anything remotely like what happened once you get out the window.  So, yeah, my mind was full of fuck at that point.  It was glorious.

    • boardgameguy

      it was the ending of sopranos

  • http://gameological.com/author/jasonreich/ Jason Reich

    Someone needs to reset the clock in this screenshot.

    • Aurora Boreanaz

      Unless it’s from a pre-game cutscene that shows time pass before the game starts?  I have no idea, haven’t played it yet.

      • Chum Joely

        Nope. It looks exactly like that in the first scene of the game. Mysterious.

  • Chip Dipson

    A similar game that uses this mechanic to greater effect is another free web game called The I of It.
    http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/570709
    A lot more fun and whimsical, and less funeraly (?)

    • Bad Horse

      Funereal.

    • Chum Joely

      Wow, that’s like exactly the same game, only way better.

  • http://www.facebook.com/mrbananagrabber Aaron Boyer

    So once you get out the window is there any way to avoid enough of the flying objects so as not to end up with the chair funeral ending?

    • Chum Joely

      And here I thought you were supposed to catch them. For points.

  • Eco1970

    This ‘game’ made me angry. Can someone tell me if this is all there is:

    I eject the guy from the chair, make my way out of the window without having any effect on anything else in the room (apart from the one table necessary), and then shoot down the slope and into the chair funeral scene.

    Any alternative endings?