Poolscape

Poolscape focuses on immersing players in the nostalgia of classic PSX gameplay through authentic ’90s-styled visuals and limitations rather than aiming for ultra-realism like most liminal space games on the market. Explore many unique Poolrooms levels, each offering its own atmospheric sound design and liminal experience, blending isolated, euphoric exploration with subtle horror elements that are heightened by the technical limitations of PS1-era hardware.

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Gameplay

• Poolscape is an exploration-based walking simulator that is meant to let players relax, listen to some aquatic music, and wander this retro rendition of the Poolrooms. However, each level will have a unique ambience and set pieces to keep the gameplay fresh and bring replay value for multiple playthroughs!
• Poolscape also features a Weirdcore-inspired entity. This entity will not harm the player, but it will keep a close eye on you throughout most levels.
• Players will find notes within each level that will give Poolscape its own lore.
• Some levels will include light platforming sections. These sections have a very forgiving respawn mechanic, so no worries if you happen to fall into an endless abyss!

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Features

• A central "hub" area that replaces a traditional main menu. This area includes waterslides that will take the player to each level!
• A full original soundtrack (with 20 songs) that will include many different ambient and aquatic tracks to enhance the liminal atmosphere.
• Accurate PSX-era graphics. This includes low-res textures, low-poly models, color dithering, pixelation, vertex snapping, distance culling, and distance fog.
• There is an optional VHS filter that can be applied to the player by interacting with the VHS Tape in the Sky Pools, giving the game a Puppet Combo-inspired look!

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Controls

WASD (move)

Shift (sprint)

E (interact)

C (crouch)

Space (jump)

LMB (camera zoom)

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Levels 

*Can be accessed using the slides in the central hub/ Sky Pools

00. Sky Pools (central hub)

01. Classic Poolrooms

02. Brutalist Poolrooms

03. Dreampools

04. Dark Poolrooms

05. Nostalgia Springs

06.  Oceanscape

07. Chlorine Complex

08. Promised Future

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NOTE: This is the FULL game. You can find the demo version here: Poolscape Demo

This game and the soundtrack are also available on Steam!