[Disclaimer: I received a review key for POOLS through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators. The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience. Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]
Release Date: April 26, 2024
Systems: OS non-specific, Windows 10 or later
Publisher: Tensori
Developer: Tensori
Time Spent: 101 minutes
Before we get into POOLS, I wanted to acknowledge the similarities between this game and a demo I played and reviewed last month, Dreamcore where you played from a first-person perspective as you walked through interconnected rooms filled with pools, playing on the fear and uneasiness of liminal spaces. I genuinely thought that this was a standalone version of the same demo, but the developer was different and this was addressed in the discussion pages. It turns out that this idea of not just empty backrooms, but empty pools has been an explored idea since around 2020 starting with Jared Pike's exploration of an "...eerie nostalgia through endless pool environments." This specific idea builds off of the 2019 concept of "backrooms," as an image that causes a feeling of unsettledness. There is another game, Anemoiapolis: Chapter 1 that incorporated the liminal pools along with other backroom settings that have since entered the collective consciousness. Lastly, there is a collection of "found footage" videos from Matt Studios that looks like it could be recordings of gameplay footage, albeit edited in a way that is more storytelling than aimlessly wandering around while trying to keep Twitch viewers entertained.
.png)
What is nice about all of this is that Tensori acknowledges all of these references and sources in a thread on the Steam forums which seems to be a thriving online community of people who are drawn not only to the concept of found footage backroom creepypasta but specifically those having to do with large complexes containing nothing but pools. Maybe it's not as congenial as all of that, but I like to think that not only is Backrooms a niche form of unsettling horror, but these different takes on backroom pools are an even nichier niche that is fostered by the community. So it is with all of this in mind that I, pun unintended, jumped into POOLS, my second foray into liminal space pools.
.png)
POOLS is on the front, a first-person perspective psychological horror game that explores liminal spaces, but only to a certain extent. Yes, you play as a person dropped into this space and your goal is to find a way out, or at least, out of your current series of rooms. The game, or at least the demo of the game since the Steam page titles this as a "demo" and there is a "BETA" watermark in the lower right corner of the game. One other standout aspect of this game is that each of the four playable stages lasts anywhere between 10-15 minutes, unlike Dreamcore where I literally wandered around for over an hour. I love that I can start a stage and explore the strangeness of the setting and come to a form of a conclusion in fewer than 30 minutes.
.png)
One of the things that stood out to me, but only the third time I played POOLS was a feature that I saw requested on the discussion pages for Dreampools, and that was asking to be able to interact with the waterslides. Because of my experience with Dreampools' waterslides that you could only look at, I had thought that not only was that a feature of the liminalness of this particular setting, but also a limitation of the engine itself. In POOLS, however, you can climb on the opening and ride down slides. I don't know if this goes against any kind of ethos about either the backrooms or the pool setting, but I enjoyed doing more than just walking or running. Kind of.
.png)
The differences in POOLS I found make it a substantially different game. Apart from being able to slide down accessible slides, there are also more features than I expected. In one stage/chapter, there were white humanoid statues either standing around or hanging out of pipes/slides in inaccessible locations. In the same chapter, there were a series of separate and interlocking saunas. In another stage/chapter, there were several white plastic deck chairs that you could actually sit in. A chair existing in a water-filled hallway was unnerving, but being able to sit in one felt a little silly. Walking through a darkened room and into a room filled with lockers, another familial place associated with pools, again took a bit of the shiver away. Having a change in scenery apart from the nearly monotonous white tile and water-filled pools offered almost a palette cleanser, nearly breaking up what makes these games about liminal spaces so unsettling. That would have to be my only criticism because while it is original to have different elements in your game to help it stand out, there is a risk of becoming too far from the original intention of the game and ending up with something slightly different.
.png)
The first two stages feel traditional if the genre of backroom pools is solidified enough for it to have a tradition at this point, backroom pools with multiple hallways through various rooms, and empty swimming pools with the occasional darkened passageway or room. The second stage is also where the mechanic of actually being able to use the colorful slides happens, although because of my past experience with Dreamcore, I had thought that the slides were non-functioning and purely aesthetic. Maybe if there had been a visual indication that slides could be used in an obvious manner, like wet footprints leading up to one it might help when players bring pre-conceived notions into a game. The upside I found to using slides was that since they are one-way use, they are likely supposed to be used as opposed to dropping you in a room that you could otherwise not escape from.
.png)
The third stage is really where changes really start happening. Maybe because you start off in a darkened room with black tiles and a blackened-green glow to the lights, but it all felt extra-terrestrial, I have read that one theory for the backrooms genre is that they are places created by aliens who don't fully understand Earthly architecture and you, the player, are part of some "rat in a maze" type experiment. This stage also introduced wood-paneled saunas complete with a massive sauna stone, which made me furrow my brow more than anything. I did really like when the screen became a bit steamy and water droplets started to condense and drip down the screen. I did have to lighten my screen up a bit while wandering through a section of interconnecting wood-paneled rooms, after which the stage ended shortly thereafter.
[Just a heads up, that the next section contains spoilers that I thought were very cool, but I can't talk about how this stage was different and thereby how the game was different without talking about it. So if you want to remain spoiler-free, you can skip the next paragraph.]
.png)
The fourth stage was probably the strangest and most gamey of the collection, which I mean in both a good and bad sense. Let's start with the bad. The primary mechanic in this stage is that you follow a shimmering light through the level to get to the end. It's a very fuzzy kind of light that gives off a different kind of light than both the ambient natural light and the illuminated light domes scattered throughout the rest of the game. It's easily recognizable so that you know where to go when you see it emanating through a hallway on the other side of a room. I say this is bad because it felt like it went against the very premise of a liminal space, but only if you are a liminal space purist. What I loved about this light though was that I felt it was executed well in the first room so you knew what you were supposed to do since it opens up a door that previously had only been a wall and allows you to progress deeper into the stage. The light would also send out a visual pulse which you could also help figure out which way to go. What was really awesome, was that because I was playing with the Nintendo Switch Pro controller, there was a slight rumble functionality whenever the pulse would pass through you. I didn't notice any other rumblings for the rest of the game, so this was a very nice surprise.
[End of spoiler].
I really enjoyed POOLS, both as a game that explores liminal spaces, but also as a game that successfully implemented more conventional video game mechanics. It had moments of uncomfortableness, but then I found the fourth stage to be a lot of fun because of the new mechanic. I liked that the stages weren't massive complexes that took hours to complete but at the same time, felt immense in their size and complex in their construction. I liked that Tensori wasn't afraid to change up the conventional idea of a liminal space video game, while not including a monster/creature that you either had to fight or run away from; which is honestly one of my biggest turn-offs to Escape the Backrooms and Inside the Backrooms. I'm interested to see what the remaining two stages are like and if any more will be added to the full game after it's released later next month.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
So I Won't Be Alone
P.S. Below you can find links to three of the four playable chapters; Stage 2 I played on the Steam Deck and only after I watched the recording, did I realize that I didn't record the audio:
No comments:
Post a Comment