Pools (2024)

I picked this up during the last Steam sale hoping for a unique atmospheric semi-horror experience and I have to say that is definitely what I got. The initial chapters of this game masterfully kept me suspended in this constant sense of dense unease while slowly trickling in environments and odd objects that felt both surreal and impossible in their construction, keeping me eager to explore every corner.

There's something about the first three chapters that feels perfectly paced. There was always something odd in every screen that caught my eye and pulled me in its direction. I needed to see the oddities around every twist and turn of the labyrinth I found myself in. But it never felt like it was just being weird for the sake of it. It was slow and deliberate in its pacing as it constantly played with my expectations. There were even times I got that really good urge to stop playing that you get when a horror game has you by the throat and you're truly unnerved.

I only wish that feeling could have lasted, because it was excellent while it did. Chapter 4 and 5 were less good but still very much enjoyable. It's when I hit Chapter 6 that it became apparent the devs had either lost focus or given up on the original idea entirely. The game turned into a funhouse that felt like it was trying really hard to be weird by throwing every strange thing it could at me in rapid succession. In each room there was a new thing to gawk at but the cohesion between them was gone. Basically, they just threw a bunch of shit at the wall to see what would stick. The ending was also quite underwhelming, but I can't fault it too much for that. There wasn't really a story, after all.

Chapter 0, which apparently came out very recently, served up more of the disappointment I found in 6. It was somehow more disappointing, if anything. I was really hoping for some kind of return to form, but no. The aesthetic established by the early chapters of the game is gone. The name POOLS ill suits this new content, if you ask me.

I think if that were the end of the story I might settle on a 4/5. The majority of the game was really great, after all. But I feel like I need to address the abysmal performance issues. This has a native Linux release so I was excited to try it out. The main menu works fine but I was greeted with an endless black screen upon loading a new file. Restarting and playing with the graphics settings eventually let me into the actual game, where things ran well enough. That is, until I finished Chapter 1 only to be greeted by another black screen. These seemed unavoidable, forcing a full restart each time. Did they test this version at all?

"No matter," I thought. "I'll switch over to Windows." This worked better. Except that at seemingly random intervals my fps would tank from a rock solid 60 down to literally 7, if the Steam fps counter is to be believed. If I was lucky this would be temporary and it'd eventually jump back up to 60. Most of the time though this required a full restart of the game, which without fail would fix the problem. My guess is it has some kind of weird memory leak maybe. But the issue became far more prevalent as I went through the final chapters, so maybe not. I eventually gave up on it with Chapter 0 and just dropped all my graphics settings to minimum, which fixed it except for an off and on stutter whenever I looked around too quickly.

It's an unfortunate major blemish on what was otherwise a really cool game. I appreciate it for committing to its minimalist walking simulator gameplay wholeheartedly while delivering a superb atmosphere-- in the first 70% of the game, anyway. I was always excited to see what the next chapter would bring.