The Chinese Room Ltd formerly Thechineseroom Limited is a British independent video game development studio best known for walking simulators, such as the Half-Life 2 mod Dear Esther, and co-developing its full-fledged remake. The company originated as a mod team for Half-Life 2, based at the University of Portsmouth in 2007, and is named after John Searle's Chinese room thought experiment, however, the origami logo is a japanese symbol.