Pools is a walking simulator that immerses itself in the aesthetics of the Backrooms, but without scares or monsters. Its proposal is simple: stroll through liminal spaces filled with water and endless hallways. There is no soundtrack, only footsteps and splashes. The game generates constant tension by making you expect a danger that never arrives. This absence of real threat is more unsettling than any jumpscare.
The engine of fear: how absence creates presence 🌀
The game uses Unreal Engine to create empty, repetitive environments that disorient the player. The uniform lighting and lack of varied textures force the brain to search for patterns where there are none. There is no hostile artificial intelligence or scripted events; the terror is born from expectation. The developer programmed a minimal ambient sound system that amplifies every echo. The result is an experience where the player themselves becomes the generator of their own anxiety.
The game where the terror is yourself (and your wet footsteps) 👣
You spend fifteen minutes walking through identical hallways and start cursing the developer for not putting in a single monster. Then you realize that the real enemy is your own imagination, whispering that something is about to come out of a corner. In the end, the scariest thing is that the game keeps its promise: there is nothing. And that, somehow, is worse than having to flee from something. At least then you would know what to avoid.