POOLS: A Poolcore Liminal Space Game Inspired by Jared Pike's Dream Pools, with Usable Water Slides! 

I wonder if all the protagonist can smell is just gallons and gallons of chlorine from all the pools. No wonder they are tripping out. Lack of oxygen.

I genuinely can't get enough of poolroom exploration games. The way people manage to create such a rich and vibrant atmosphere using nothing but bathroom tiles and water is astounding. No cheap scares, no "scary horror mascot", just you exploring what appears to be an infinite labyrinth. I love this so much.

2:31 the metal pipe sound...

WC Escher is an extremely funny pun and i don't think youre going to get enough credit for it lmao

There are a few Poolrooms/Dream Pools inspired games now, but for me this one is easily in the top three (with DREAMCORE and Anemoiapolis). I really love the level design and it's packed full of interesting sights so it never feels repetitive. Stage three is particularly impressive, it's got some weird stuff going on! This video features four of the six planned stages for the full release (I'll cover the final two when the game releases). There are no big scares or monster chases, but there are a few uncanny occourances to creep you out.

I love indie video games. I can look at an artist's weird liminal pool art and think "I want to go there," and there's a non-zero chance *someone* has made that possible.

Just want to say THANK YOU for actually crediting Jared Pike’s Dream Pools. Too many people have just taken his videos and renamed them ‘poolrooms’ without crediting him. So thank you for actually mentioning him.

I think the real horror would be being employed as a janitor in this place

I could seriously play a ton of these games in a row and still find them interesting. I love simply roaming inside a liminal space. The game just has to look good and sound good. Love the atmosphere so much. Somewhat unnerving, but mostly just relaxing to me.

Developers talk about how important sound is and the visuel aspects. I would love for us to hear water drip and see the floor get wet, when you we have been in the pool and start walking around. It's small things like that that increases immersion. Not to mention being able to see your own legs at least.

With the haziness and how reflective the walls are in the first few rooms, I feel like the humidity is crazy high, like in a sauna, it actually made me feel kind of stuffy and uncomfortable. Impressive atmosphere/realism.

30:38 just, you know, casually ignoring all laws of physics and start walking on a wall. My god this is incredible!

i love the little nod to Funny Games, where you jumped and the game was like "nope, you're not allowed to do that, try again"

Finally a game where you can ride the slides. Take notes devs.

The rubber ducks mouth been open inspires inexplicable dread in me. Would be a perfectly cute design if its mouth was closed. So Kudos to the developers.

Even if the sounds of the player walking in shallow water are like he’s goosestepping, there’s a real weight to the movement and sounds when you’re wading and swimming. It’s eerily dreamlike.

what poolishness is this

I love the pool rooms. Beautiful and creepy af. Being concerned about something attacking me is scary but it's far less fun for me when it's a real encounter. I have ptsd and it's no longer fun at that point. This kind of game is cathartic in a way where I get to feel creeped out but stay in control. It's beautifully designed and keeps me curious. Thank you for playing this for us! I don't have any way to play games but I get to have an experience of them.

the attention to detail in this game is unreal, i've watched pretty much every dreampools-esque game out there (because i find the setting intensely soothing and satisfying in a very specific way) and this is one of my favorites simply due to the amount of possible object interactions (being able to sit in the chairs, the camera lens dripping in the sauna, the slides!!!) -- there's so many little details that make this game incredible!!!

2:31 Why tf did I laughed so hard at that... I need to get myself checked soon

I am continuously impressed with how much realism video game graphics have become indistinguishable from real life.

The sound of the footsteps is bugging me. It should be like "splish splash splosh" because of the water in their shoes. And it doesn't sound like they're barefoot either. I can't stop thinking about that. Cool game tho.

Wow... that's a lot of ceramic tiles!

32:05 Go ahead, take a spooky dookie.

Very pretty. If I had to make one suggestion it's on the footsteps. Since there is a clear heel and toe sound , with the echo you get four noises per footstep. I think it would be better if there were some variation in how it sounds when a foot strikes the ground, otherwise it can distract a bit from the immersion.

2:31 GOD DAMMIT LMAO

24:12 imagine taking a dump in that, your stuff just floats back out and will probably accompany you til you get out of the pool. The game is like Portal, you're all alone in a gigantic structure.

I love it I had dreams of being lost in a recreational facility (with pools) for years minor suggestion: when you get out of deeper water there should be dripping noises - to add immersion

18:50 Bobbert's ooooweeeee! moment, so happy at the end lol

Thank you for playing 🙏

I couldn't relax for a second of the rest of the video after the scene with the giant rubber ducky and the hands on the ladder

This is creepy and beautiful at the same time. And graphics are amazing. The water effects are incredible.

I like how the Pool rooms/Dream pools has become it's own side thing alongside the the main backgrounds stuff. It's one of the very few outside of level 0 that has a cult following thanks to Jared Pike. Would love to see someone focus on Level 94 or any other weirdcore level because those make me feel especially unnerved.

This was very interesting. Refreshing to see devs think outside the box. Thanks for sharing.

This is heaven for me. I’d love to be able to explore endless rooms like this.

Can anyone else relate to the smell of fresh frenchfries at indoor swimming pools?

Take away otherworldly horrors and I'd loooove to chill in a surreal pool like that with all those comfy spots.

Does anyone else get very weird nostalgic feelings from watching this playthough? It's like it makes me vaugely remember what its like to go to an indoor pool/bathhouse/waterpark when i were 4-5 years old. Tiling everywhere, one large liminal space. You rely entirely on your guardian while youre there visiting, and when you're that age places like it feel absolutely enormous as maze like. It's the age when gerting lost in a bathhouse and not seeing another person at the end of the corridor is enough to make you feel scared and unsure about where you are.

this entire game looks like a hyper realistic tech demo for realtime light reflect and refreaction, in combination with water physics - the fact this game was aalready use to fake "lost places" is basically jsut calrifying how good it looks ...... and the uncannyness of very unrealistic things happening in a seemingly realsiticly physics bound space - is very very unsettleing - and i jsut watched the experience being played

Funny that this popped upright when I was looking for more poolrooms content lol Can't wait to see the full release! I like that this one dips a little into weirdcore

These kind of games always gives a feel: This place seems like build by humans, BUT NOT FOR HUMANS! Or vice versa.

The poolrooms have never looked so good. This is fantastic! 👍🏻

Never thought that something like this is a shared experience. I'm glad I found out and the game really gets it pretty well. Amazing

Simply love the out the layouts of the rooms. Especially liked the lighting at 34:30 and all the dark areas following on after.

23:11 Damn there's even a sauna?! Up to this point with all the dipping in and out of pools I was thinking the player character must be freezing at this point, but nah it's fine just hike to the sauna zone

I love the color of water, that extremely dark green/blue. It reminds me when I was a very small child and my Mom would take me to the big swimming pool at the YMCA; one day I guess they were cleaning the pool because it was mostly drained except for a pool of dark green water far down at the bottom of the deep end.

Finally, a game that has somewhat realistic water motion when the player character is walking through it. It's not perfect, but I really liked the effect of looking behind you and seeing your wake or getting up close to the duck and your ripples making it move. Awesome details throughout, too.

Damn I wasn't worried about running this game at 4K but it brought my 3080 to it's knees.. had to bring lighting down to medium. At 2:30, when i played, the ladder got pulled up into the hole before i could get to it...

Nope-nope-nope-nope-nope... "...with usable water slides !" *Damn, I'm SO IN !!! Let's break some necks, woo-hoo !!!*

18:48 19:06 what a satisfying moment this is, I felt the sheer excitement you felt when going down the slide with that cute dancing you did😂🤗 awesome work bro keep it up🙏💯

We need more games like this. ❤ looks amazing

The pain is sliding through the pipes...without water in them.

This is what happens when Ikea designs a spa.

This game puts me the sleep the way those asmr videos do Oh to be dreaming in the pools forever

This is One of first Best non-Backrooms games I ever Saw. Usually Backrooms poolrooms are Just noob style Infinite Map sitting in the heavenly Void-Out of Bounds and it Looks extremely simplistic just like other maps in The Virtual Realm and interior and outdoor structure of the maps makes no sense. non-Backrooms poolrooms are much more natural paradise Dreamworld nostalgia looking and the underground structure makes some sense.😊

I can never get enough of poolrooms liminal space games

Great looking graphics infinate rooms love the different rooms layouts

Ok finished watching this. The creator of this not only captured the eerie calm nostalgia of the original but also took it a step further by adding a presence of something is actually there near the end but nothing actually moves with the Giant unknown humanoid statues. It's almost as if this version of the Dreampools is... Alive.

This is amazing. The atmosphere is incredible, and I really appreciate the effort that’s gone into the sound.

I watch this before I go to sleep and I have amazing dreams.

This is just as good as Into The Hyperverse liminal videos!

30:21 Look at the water at a different gravity (like going through another dimension). Parts like this are what make the backrooms interesting.

Thank you for playing ❤

Very cool, but hopefully the final version uses a different sound for the footsteps - sounds like I'm walking around in dress shoes. Something more like bare feet on wet tile might be a little more evocative

Some really haunting imagery. What Indie game-making is all about: going down your own rabbit hole, and letting others come with you.

I absolutely adore poolrooms games

Cool another great recommendation, gonna check out the demo.

Respect to whoever did the tiling for this place.

Imagined how wrinkled you’d be after having to go through all this water

This is terrifying to me.

I shrieked and gurgled like an idiot seeing this is finally out and you played it just as quick

This looks SO DARN COOL!! Especially the 30:00 mark onwards! I want to play this immediately.

There are 4 playable stages now? Damn I need to catch up. Only played the first one. This game's visuals and audio completely blew me away! So close to realism! Love it 🙏🏻

32:03 This is me in the morning having diarrhea

This is very spooky!

I live in a small apartment, my bathtub is 4 1/2 feet long and I'm 6'2". The sheer luxury of just laying down in a single hallway full of warm water, all stretched out, free from other adults, or even worse, KIDS.... It's just too relaxing. It might be worth getting killed by demons for just a few hours in that. I'd happily haunt that place FOREVER! They'd need the Ghostbusters to get me out!

best ASMR of water and steps ❤

Curiosity survey, please leave a comment chat! When you watched this game, what did you imagine the water temperature to be? Warm/hot/room temp/icy? Did you consider it at all? Did it change in different areas or was it the same everywhere?

This is amazing! Also pretty scary, reminds me of nightmares. When you came to that big, black hole with the diving board, I felt really uncomfortable just looking at it. And when you jumped in, I sat back in my sofa, freaking out, lol. 😅 Those noises are really creepy, reminds me a bit of Titanic, when she sinks. The water didn't help matters, though they are pools. Those areas where you were swimming in the dark corridors, made me think "this is something I would never dare to do". I'm terrified of the dark, and dark water, and dark, big holes where you can't see what's in the darkness. The thought alone is terrifying in my opinion. And that giant rubber duck that suddenly showed up around the corner, oh, my gosh! I felt silly afterwards, gasping in horror for a rubber duck, though it was abnormally large, and that sound that came with it was horrifying. 😅 These developers has pressed all of my terror buttons, kudos to them for that! 🤩👍 I love it when gameplays are scary enough to actually scare me. Thank you for uploading your gameplay, Alpha! You are tough to play this scary horror game. I'm not sure it's a game I could play, but I love to watch your gameplay. 🙂

2:31 I cannot take that sound seriously any longer

2:31 Loud metal pipe sfx

Played this today and I loved it. Very strange experience

This makes me so anxious

Fun fact... its not chlorine you smell in the pool.. its Chloramines, When chorine mixes with tears sweat and urine it produces that iconic chlorine smell. (Also its what makes your eyes burn) So the more potent the smell doesn't mean more chlorine., just meant that someone or lots of someones just decided to pee in the pool. So in this case in this liminal space if few people have been in these pools the place would be quite devoid of chlorine odor.

Stop going down slides that lead into walls! 32:02 And tell that guy up there to quit staring at the guy on the toilet! It looks like he's already got enough on his mind without some peeper watching him on the commode!

14:12 like this huge hall and the Sound of blowing Wind ( but where can it come from?

The breathing pools guy can't get me, the breathing pools guy can't get me, the breathing pools guy can't get me!

Amazing

I hope there are moments when you have to escape from the place because water levels begin to increase, to have that kind of tension that the first Sonic games had.

the panning on the footsteps has me feeling the immersion of the mc's wiiiiiiide feet

The swimming sfx are great but could really use some dripping for a few seconds after player exits water Also the footsteps alternating stereo channels is weird. The 3d environmental sound spacialization processing seems good though. Very cool.

I LOVE THIS GAME

Heh... "WC Escher", I get it.

That 100% left/right/left/right channel footsteps sounds are hard to ignore

I want to experience this in VR. Please make a Quest 3 version.

The falling metal pipe sound effect 😌👌🏻

35:36 ahhhh finally toilet!

Kind of gave me water temple vibes (from Zelda Ocarina of Time).

I like the fact u can slide down and i was ready for a jump scare 😂

Impressive.