Inspired by liminal space aesthetics, Pools (2024) is a first-person exploration game set in a bewildering, seemingly endless complex of swimming pools. Pools is a minimalist game—there's no heads-up display or status bar, no dialogue, no clear objectives, no monsters, no NPCs, no dialogue, no text, no soundtrack, no death, no puzzles, no resource gathering, no inventory, no tools, no quests. You can look around, walk (or run), crouch, swim, and that’s it. The game also resists traditional narrative expectations in favor of affective atmosphere, subtle unease, and uncanny nostalgia.

Disco Elysium is a unique role-playing game that blends thoughtful storytelling, detective work, and philosophical exploration. Set in a sprawling, crumbling city called Revachol, the player controls a hard-boiled detective who wakes up with amnesia and no memory of who he is. The game’s story revolves around solving a murder mystery, but its true focus is on the player character’s internal struggle and attempts to situate himself in the world of Elysium’s complex political, social, and existential movements.

In The Witness, the player wanders around a mysterious and gorgeous island solving increasingly complex line-drawing puzzles. But is that all there is to the game? What about the statues and audio logs that are to be found all over the island? Is there a story or message in The Witness?

All audio clips in the podcast quoted from The Witness. Opening and closing theme music: “Magic Escape Room” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.