POOLS™ vs HYDRA

Explore, admire and listen. That’s it. Uncanny. Relaxing. Unnerving. Eerie. Immersive. POOLS isn’t a traditional game. it’s slow, reflective, and intentionally uneventful, perhaps a bit like virtual museum. So take your time. Breathe. POOLS unfolds slowly, rewarding patience and quiet attention. No monsters chasing you or jumping at your screen. Yet it can feel oppressive at times by invoking quiet fears of getting lost, the dark, tight spaces and the strange beauty of liminal space architecture. There's no typical story. But as you explore and advance further, you start to notice that the game's world changes around you, deeper you go… Rooms look and feel… different. Base game features six chapters, each lasting 10-30 minutes. Inspired by the internet phenomena Liminal spaces, Found footage and The Backrooms, especially the Poolrooms concept. One of the original artists behind the Poolrooms concept is Jared Pike.

DUTY RECORD · DRILLING STATION HYDRA-4 EUROPA · DEPTH 19,000 M · SIGNAL TO EARTH: 48 MINUTES SENDER: ARGUS, station management system Crew: seven. Responding: one. The drill broke into the ocean at 04:11. Forty minutes later the hydrophones picked up a signal — structure, not noise. I logged the crew listening to it. Then six of them went beyond the perimeter, confirming intent three times, as protocol requires. I had no grounds to interfere. They set their boots at the water's edge — the way shoes are set at the door of a home. Engineer Allard has been asleep for thirty-one hours: sedative, full dose, authorized by the senior engineer. His note is in his cabin: "Don't go down. If you go down anyway — don't answer it. It asks politely." When she wakes, she will have a headlamp, air for about thirty moves, and a station that remembers more than it says. What happens next is not mine to decide. I left the lights on for her. HYDRA-4 is a text horror game: fifteen rooms, ten endings. No dice, no luck percentages — the price of every action is printed on the button before you press it. One shift runs about twenty minutes, and one shift won't cover it all: you choose what you won't find out. The game remembers your previous runs and quotes them back at you. The safe code can be memorized for real — next shift you open it with no hints. Descriptions come with plates from the ARGUS log, opened by a small magnifier that never interrupts the reading. Twelve languages, switchable mid-scene. Sound is synthesized on your device. No ads; the one optional purchase unlocks nothing — it just says thank you.