There are bad hair days, and then there is discovering that an alien has attached itself to your head and would like a say in your diet. ChainStaff begins with that second problem. Earth's creatures are being mutated by Star Spores, your personal space has been comprehensively violated, and the creature responsible for your new silhouette is also keeping you in fighting shape. The roommate agreement needs work.
Developed and published by Mommy's Best Games, this single-player action platformer reached Steam for Windows on April 7, 2026. The Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 versions followed on April 8. Its name belongs to the transforming tool at the centre of the action, an unusually versatile solution to an unusually unpleasant invasion.
Reasons to look closer
The ChainStaff can act as a spear, a shield or a grappling hook, with its uses handled through one button. That is a tidy mechanical idea. Attack, protection and movement draw on the same object, so learning its possibilities has value across different kinds of trouble. You are carrying the equivalent of a survival multitool, if the person designing the multitool had been banned from camping.
There is an interesting burden attached to that economy. Fewer buttons do not remove the need to decide what to do. Choosing to attack, cover yourself or move away still asks you to read the situation. The attraction is having several answers connected by a shared physical idea, rather than a pocket full of unrelated gadgets. For players who like developing fluency with a particular weapon, that focus is a persuasive hook.
The floor is a suggestion
A grappling tool changes the questions worth asking about a platforming space. The ground stops being the only sensible place to look, and the route across a gap can become more interesting than the gap itself. Combining that tool with a weapon is especially appealing because it brings navigation into the same conversation as fighting. Geography becomes part of the plan instead of scenery waiting politely behind the violence.
ChainStaff's ten levels include mountains, icy caves and floating jellyfish islands. That last destination is an excellent indication that sensible geography has already left the meeting. A strange environment earns its place in an action game when it encourages a different way of thinking about space. Here, the pairing of improbable terrain and a tool built for swinging gives the visual absurdity a practical reason to exist.
Please do not eat the rescue mission
Stranded soldiers present a choice between rescue and harvesting their organs for upgrades, with different benefits and endings attached to the decision. It is a grotesque way to connect progression with the story's central problem. The alien offers useful power while encouraging behaviour that makes the phrase saving humanity increasingly awkward to put on a mission report.
The interesting part is that helping someone and improving your prospects occupy the same decision. Upgrades can be easy to regard as morally neutral buttons: the number rises, therefore congratulations. Giving the resource a uniform and a reason to hope you have arrived makes that arithmetic rather less comfortable. There is black comedy in a hero checking whether a rescue operation is compatible with the current build.
Different endings also give another run a purpose beyond repeating the same route more efficiently. You can reconsider what kind of survivor you are trying to be. Nobody should mistake the premise for a gentle meditation on friendship, though. It is body horror with a practical streak, and the practical streak is examining your colleagues for useful components.
An album cover with an infestation
The hand-drawn presentation takes inspiration from 1970s and 1980s album art, while Deon van Heerden's score combines heavy rock with lighter synthesizer passages. These choices belong together. A world of giant mutated creatures and unlikely terrain benefits from an aesthetic willing to commit to the ridiculous, rather than apologizing for it with a tasteful grey menu.
That sort of visual identity gives a small action game something valuable: a reason to remember its particular nonsense. A gigantic monster on a rock sleeve invites you to imagine the impossible story behind it. Putting a player beneath that monster turns the same image into a much more urgent question about where to stand. Preferably somewhere outside the creature's immediate opinion.
One head, several competing priorities
Large bosses give the transforming weapon an obvious stage. The useful appeal is the prospect of solving a threat through positioning and an appropriate tool choice, rather than simply admiring how much of the screen the creature occupies. Scale supplies theatre; decisions supply the reason to keep paying attention. A truly enormous enemy still ought to do more than make the health bar look embarrassed.
ChainStaff is most clearly aimed at players who want a focused solo action game with an identifiable mechanical idea and very little embarrassment about its excesses. The gruesome upgrade choices are part of that identity, so anyone hoping for a cosy alien adventure has wandered into the wrong cave. For everyone interested in a weapon that doubles as escape equipment, there is a strong concept here. Rescue the soldiers if you can. At minimum, stop taking catering advice from the thing on your head.