The Collection Chamber: THE RESIDENTS: FREAK SHOW

It was 1992 when the band began to think of the emerging CD-ROM technology. They had created a comic book entitle Freak Show that was published by Dark Horse comics on April Fool's Day of that year. They decided to employ the talents of Jim Ludtke, who had worked with them on a few shorts, to design the game. Two years later, it was released to the world with the help of The Voyage Company who published it.

The game is essentially a virtual tour of a freak show, where you can visit various attractions. There's not that much to do but things get interesting when you deliberately ignore the owner and head off backstage. Here you can meet each of the freaks up close and personal and learn of their often sad histories. They are accompanied by a short plot-based song from the band and act like little music videos.

Calling it a 'game' is perhaps a bit of a misnomer. There are no puzzles or strategy or threat of death; only a story, music and archive material. This is by no means a bad thing as the strange personality of The Residents are etched into every pixel.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses the DOSBox-X build of DOSBox running Microsoft Windows 3.1 to get the game working on modern systems. Manual included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

03.05.2016 - Version 2 - Separated the two games into their own installer.
Autoclose Windows 3.1 when exiting the game.
Fixed crash when entering backstage.

15.03.2022 - Version 3 - Now uses the DOSBox-X build of DOSBox 0.74.
Added PDF Manual.

File Size: 391 Mb. Install Size: 715 Mb. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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