Here's a post for people to discuss the game after playing it. What did you like? What did you dislike? Are there any interesting details that stuck out to you?

ill start off by saying i really really really like this game so far. i have no idea why games based off liminal spaces havent really been done before. there are games that HAVE liminal spaces, but arent really made AS liminal spaces. (portal for example, plays off this concept, with having spaces with implications of humanity but a lack of actual people. but its a science facility, so most aspects of liminality, such as nostalgia, wont come into play often) 

as someone who adores liminal spaces, the application of them to a walking sim video game is something i really enjoy. looking at pictures is one thing, but actually exploring them in first person is something else, and is what i look forward to most about this game. really the closest ive seen before is some specific gmod maps, but even that has limitations which this game exceeds. this game is just a very excellent way to experience liminal spaces and really enjoy them. i often see liminal space images and just have a desire to explore them, which, unless theres a random gmod map made about it, is usually impossible. which is why i enjoy this game taking inspiration from commonly seen liminal spaces.

about the environments within the game, i really enjoy the textures and rendering, they really give the place a clean sort of atmosphere, which really lends to the feel of the setting. theres no mold or decay, all the lights and electrical equipment are still running, but who is taking responsibility of actually cleaning this place? who is making sure everything is still running? the fact that it feels like people SHOULD be here, every area SHOULD be occupied, but it isnt, is such a big part of how i enjoy this game. you truly are alone here, or at least it seems like it. (the removal of the random body after the locker room is very much appreciated because it did throw this feel off for me) the mystery lover in my brain kind of wants to know, but also the absolute mystique of this empty underground city thats still clean and running is so fascinating to me.

for some things that i hope for in the future, i hope the store area is a bit more expanded. i was fine with what there was in the first beta, since the pool section wasnt super long, and ofc the part after it wasnt done. but with the pool section becoming expanded to be like 3-4(-5?) times bigger, i hope the shops become bigger as well. maybe even a food court of some kind down the line. another thing id like is more interactions with the places you go. in particular, i was disappointed i wasnt able to slide down the slides. although there is a slide that you do have to WALK up in order to proceed, so i understand not doing it for that reason. there is also a small tunnel in a childrens play place i thought for sure i could crouch and go through, but as far as im aware, i couldnt. perhaps adding a crouch button, and making it so crouching on slides lets you slide down them? this is honestly just personal preference and i do understand that thats dev time that could go to something else, but i just thought id say my thoughts about it anyways. its such a minor grievance it doesnt take away from my experience for more than like 5 seconds.

im honestly still not a super big fan of the locker room maze, but im not really sure how youd change it besides making it shorter somehow. it did feel shorter than it was in the first beta but maybe i got lucky, im not sure. the more backrooms-like maze seems promising, i just hope that the REAL exit is more easily visible than it is in the locker room one. 

another comment i have is that, i did notice the shadow thing for like a split second in a couple of places, and it did end up making me a bit paranoid about where it was, and where it could come from, which is something i enjoyed. altho i did check that one room in the shops area, where, in the first beta, the shadow thing would float above the corpse. it still floats there here, and i honestly feel a bit mixed about it. cuz before now you could completely miss it (im not even sure if its still in the locker room maze, because you can go through that without ever seeing it) so having it just straight up be shown for a few seconds in an optional area can be weird. i think that maybe if theres a point where you cant NOT see it, it might lend some more strength to this. my first time in the first beta, i saw the shadow thing in the locker room, so it appearing here made it feel like it was chasing me, which i liked. but i think i prefer the subtler appearances, and they dont super mesh well together unless theres something really establishing earlier on. im not really sure, just some food for thought i suppose. 

overall i really loves this game, and im always looking forward to any more content this game receives. its very excellent for a lot of reasons and is a very unique and enjoyable experience, for liminal space lovers, and for those who hardly know about the concept. i hope that this games eventual release brings forth a new wave of liminal space based games. i for one am very excited about it.

this went on way longer than i thought it would LMAO i hope this just goes to show how excited i am

Hey Andrew! 

Great stuff, honestly. It was pretty much what I would expect from a game about Liminal Spaces. I'll give you a run down of what I liked and what I thought could be improved.

LIKES

The Electrical Panel Puzzle
There was something satisfying about the puzzle and solving it, not sure if it was the animation or the format you laid out for it but it was great. More of those would be a great decision for further gameplay

Graphics and Reflections
I am a sucker for good reflections and did you deliver. The game is well optimised and the style you have gone for really fits the mood for Liminal Spaces. The "eye adjustment" effect was also super nice. Really loved that touch since I don't see a lot of games offer an authentic visual transition like that between differently lit areas. 

The Auditory Ambience
Something that is important for a horror game like this is audio and there were some nice touches with the audio. I recently invested in Dolby Atmos so having those auditory nuances in the back was something that caught my eye... or rather, my ear. 

FUTURE SUGGESTIONS

Give us some more to fear with the shadow man
Don't get me wrong, that guy in the pool lockers and toilets was my worst enemy but I felt something was missing from him with him being a shadow humanoid. Some visual effects like static/chromatic aberration or an auditory cue when he is close like a constant bassy drone when you get too close would really amp up that chase with him and give you more of a sense of urgency. The future encounters with him could also be posed this way but it depends on what sort of mood you were going with him

Horror ambience
For me, I think some further ambience and tension building in the areas where you want the player to be scared or on edge would be good. Just random sound effects like the ones you have already been doing, just to keep the player on edge. You already know what you are doing with that!

(Potential future idea) - Procedurally Generated Chase Mode
With that chase part in the beta, an idea of an auto-generated chase mode where you are infinitely chased with increasing difficulty through computer-generated liminal spaces. Give the place some puzzles and some indications of how to escape and add a few other tricks in there and you will be set with an infinite runner for that. 

Let me SLIDE!
Maybe a crouch option or something but I REALLY wanted to slide down the slide. I would also give the slide you walk back up some slippiness to it or some difficulty walking up it, as walking up a slide without using your hands is a nightmare!

Overall for a part 1 V2 BETA, it's honestly stunning. The fact you have achieved this much solo is really something to be proud of and I am sure as hell excited to see more of this game later on. I wonder whether you left any secrets in that final area but I couldn't find any from my toying around with the area (nice reference to The Backrooms btw!). If you ever consider making a complementary VR-supported experience for this, that would be incredible and also scary as all hell (but that's a future task if you think it's doable). Good work and hyped to see more of this!

Just finished playing through it for V2 and I have to say, I am in love with the concept of liminality, and this helps to encapsulate that feeling.

I found exploring the different environments, both older and the newer additions both relaxing and anxiety inducing as I didn't know what to expect, especially with the Shadow people. I remember experiencing one in the locker room/ bathroom stage and one in the mall portion but with this version, didn't know if any others have been added and it took my daughter to get me to notice a few of the newer ones.
Great atmosphere, and the different stages strewn throughout were wonderful so far and provided a great variety.

In terms of features that I would recommend, especially coming from one who experiences motion sickness easily, I think a FOV slider and the option to have a floating crosshair would assist greatly, as well as the ability to turn down the graininess/ motion blur if possible.

The framerate was decent but it did jump periodically if I moved the mouse too quickly.

Overall, very well done and I look forward to V3 or even the final concept.

My fave level was the unfinished backrooms-esque one. Something about it was just kinda cool about running around endlessly and seeing how incredibly screwed up the rooms started becoming. Somehow it didn't feel that threatening either, so that was also good for me. 
I do hope that the end product is over an hour long. Since I got through my first playthrough of the second beta in about a half hour. But exploration of endless procedural generated versions of the levels would be fun after the main chapter. And I know Solo dev life isn't easy, I just really love the thought of having more places to explore.

Thoughts/Some things that'd be cool to add:
-Varied footstep sounds
-Random/arbitrary furniture having a small chance of appearing in places like the backrooms areas. Like singular chairs in the corner or something.
-Also support the idea of non-horror/no shadow people mode being available from the start, as opposed to it being unlocked or something.
-The music I heard I liked, but I only heard two songs and the rest was varying levels of threatening vacuum cleaners.  I also miss having that surreal chill track in the pink pool area after the huge one you fall into from the first beta. I know it got moved into the Lazy River zone, but I thought i'd mention it.
Edit: Oh yea the jump is also really ridiculous, I can literally hit my head on the backrooms' ceiling without any help. Since big jumps seem important to the game, making it feel more weighty/not quite as accelerated might help.
And not sure if its an issue for anyone else but noticing the circuit box in the weird little hottub pool area wasn't super easy for me.
One other thing, I streamed this game for my friends on discord fine but it started making one motion sick by the end. It didn't bother me personally but I'll add that since someone else mentioned it making them motion sick somewhere in these comments too,

It's a very intriguing game with a lot of mysterious things. So many details stood out all the way from the beginning. Like the fact that the way he got there was by falling through a hole that was set up like some kind of trap. Was the whole place built to be some kind of trap? and if not, how were regular visitors meant to enter and why was it built underground, several stories deep judging by how long he fell? There was an opening in the ceiling of the first room specifically for people to fall into this seemingly endless pool, so this place couldn't have been built as a regular pool/spa. At least one of the rooms had balconies, like people were meant to watch whatever would be going on down there

Unless it was meant to be a dream or hallucination; every area seemed familiar yet unsettlingly off in the way dreams often are. And as someone else mentioned, everything was so well-maintained and yet there were no signs of people. The county didn't even know about its existence or authorize any construction, yet there was this monumental underground complex. As the protagonist mentioned, it seemed like it was made to be occupied by a lot of people. But there was nothing about the layout of the pools that would make any sense as a functional waterpark or spa. Or in the layout of the mall

I actually hope none of these things are answered directly, and can instead be theorized about. It would be fun if there are some more hints and mysteries about the lore later in the game

Ok, so... I've been seeing others' sugestions, and yeah, while a slightly better jump and maybe being able to run would be nice, I honestly couldn't believe we couldn't slide on the, er, slides. My disappointment was immeasurable and my day was ruined (jk). 

Now, let's see... Really like the premise, the fact we're just a dude stumbling in there due to our job, how the empty lots already look like those liminal images of hills and way-too-neatly-put-together houses, but without the houses (imagine if that's the ending, leaving the underground into a city that looks just like that, huh), the looks of the locations, how the fact so many of these rooms would serve no real purpose or just be completely out of place or built in a completely anomalous way in our regular reality... The fact you went out of your way to mention the water was warm was a nice touch.

The control panels were a neat little distraction, I do like how they look quite a bit, hopefully they get more complicated as you advance through the game... Those puzzles that did not include the control panels, but rather usage of the environment, either by interacting with it or through platforming, were great! I really would like that to be a constant throughout the remainder of the game, especially the former! 

Lazy River was the first part that really got me, by that point I was already immersed into the whole ordeal... Took me quite a bit to find that big kiddie park, I was going cuckoo when walking down the path, in a good way!  

The Reservoir and the Slides were the second parts with the most tension for me. Seeing how the floors interconnect, the seemingly meaningless rooms, the unnecessarily deep pool right below a hole on the ceiling, the rectangular vent under the water (which I was dreading having to get into, not gonna lie), the reservoirs themselves looking like regular indoors pools but with sunken walkways, divided by actual spa pools ...it makes the whole place almost make some sense, and yet it doesn't in the slightest! But then there's the signs advising not to dive, the jacuzzi, the look of the slides themselves... These look perfectly normal on their own, just absolutely out of place, and I love it!

The Locker Room was the most memorable bit to me. The eeriness of the surrounding darkness set the mood, the interactivity with all the faucets, lockers and showers, the dread of many rooms being similar, almost impossible to regularly navigate, the message on the mirror, the panic I started feeling as things started making noises behind me, it felt real! I was feeling a bit panicked, scrambling my way out of these now claustrophobic rooms and hallways of lockers and darkness! I didn't know what was chasing me, and I didn't want to! Genius idea to have Exit signs guide us, such a simple impulse done very well! 

Amd as it turns out, it wasn't just a Spa! It was a complex of, possibly, many commodities, a mall even! Don't know what's an "In and Outlet", but I can't wait to see how they'll look like.

One last question... Will we ever get an explanation as to why this place exists, or how, or if it even does exist at all? Or will Anemoiapolis remain as one of those unexplainable mysteries of our reality? 

I just finished playing v2 and  I loved it! 

First off, the things I liked:

• The graphics. Game was beautiful, and ran very well on my laptop, those water graphics are top notch bro.
• I like the setup for the narrative, and I like that our character expresses his thoughts without reading them allowed with the "Q" prompts, except for a couple times. Sometimes  I feel in games when a character is saying everything they think out loud without it being obvious that its supposed to be in their head, it comes off a little corny to me.
• The simplicity! I like that you didn't try to make too much go on at the same time, that and the subtlety of it all, the shadow people for example, I  only saw one while I was playing,  but I didn't mind that because I could "feel" them around me with all the sounds and stuff that were happening around in the various settings.
• I feel like also the layouts you made for the map were a lot of fun, and didn't get boring, except for a few spots. I like that there was some verticality to the map.
• Something I really appreciated was how the game was linear, but it wasn't like "just walk in a straight line", it had some ambiguity to it, not a crazy amount, and I was never lost at any point really, and the game guided me in a perfect way I feel to where it felt like my hand wasn't being held 24/7.
• The rewiring. It being my first playthrough of the game, I was not familiar that this was present in the game, but what a welcome addition! It seems just a little bare bones at the moment and could use a bit more of a challenge I feel, but I am really glad it's in there so we aren't just walking the whole time.
• The music. Loved the music, just hope there is more tracks in the final version.

Now some of the things I wasn't the biggest fan of/ some bug stuff

• Audio bugs, experienced way more audio bugs than gameplay bugs in this experience, there were some things that I felt should have made noise and then wouldn't,  for example: I think it's right as you get into the mall I believe, and that vent you go through fell to the ground in my playthrough and it just made no sound. Continuing on audio, there were lots of background sound effects, and I especially noticed this during the locker room chase, that would cut short or end abruptly, and it wouldn't sound right at all.
• The voice acting. I know its not the focus of the game, but it felt a little too much like someone reading off of a script, at least in the beginning.
• Jump. To me right now the jump feels a little off,  I can't really describe it that well, but it feels almost too heavy if that makes sense?
• Let us slide down the slide!! lol
• This could also be a developer choice, but I wish there were more things I could find around the place, like little knick-knacks that just add a bit of creepiness to the environment, and in that extend the narrative the tiniest bit
• The locker chase and The Lazy River, I enjoy that it loops back on itself (at least I think that's what happens lol) and makes you question if you're going the right way or not, but I feel like maybe they could both benefit from a couple of the rooms/areas looking a little different.
• Some physics on some items seem a little weird. Like the innertubes, and that vent I was talking about previously  when you get into the mall.

Overall, I am extremely excited to see where this project goes. If there were any suggestions I could give my main ones would be: More interactable things in the environment, more fleshed out voice acting,  tuning up the jump and physics of items, but yeah just keep doing what you're doing dude because you seem like you're on the right path. You have a super solid base.

p.s I know nothing ab game development so some of the stuff I pointed out and suggested may not be the  best advice.

I really loved the Beta! I was listening to one of those "music in an empty mall" playlists on my second playthrough and it worked perfectly haha. the visuals really played with my nostalgia in a way I loved and the puzzles made me feel like I was an active part of the narrative. I will say I got really turned around during the Lazy River and Locker Room sections, but that might have been your intention haha. Overall though it's at least a 9/10 for me, I'd love to see some hotel and office inspired levels in the full game, which I can hardly wait for!

Incredible game i love everything about this and you captured that destinct feeling that makes everything just more eerie, i very much enjoy the talking and thinking Mechanic it just adds more to the experience but i have to say that the jumping mechanic looks to video gamey and is too fast it really brings u out of the atmosphere.

This comment is probably overreaching as I'm sure you have the main elements of the game locked down, but I'd say the entire mechanic of being chased by the shadow person(s?) is unnecessary. The general atmosphere and area design is nearly perfect, and it would be fascinating to see how you could build suspenseful situations and challenges based only on the environment (visual and audio) rather than resorting to the pursuit mechanic, which has been done to death and doesn't really add anything to the experience. I'll leave it at this but would be happy to throw out some specific ideas if you're interested. All that being said, it's looking and feeling great and I'm psyched to play the final game when it's out! Thanks for reading :)

Finally the official Liminal space game :D
This is awesome, I love this aesthetic and ambiance so much that I would just walk around even if nothing happens.

Saw that you planned to do a peaceful mode, that's great.

About that entity, you shouldn't "warn" people.

"You are not the only thing roaming these halls. If you see something in the corner of your eye, it's not just your imagination."

The first appearance was so quick that I actually though it was my imagination. If you didn't warn me, the effect would've been tenfold. Although, the next appearance are longer and there is no room for doubt anymore, it would be more efficient if it always like the first time so we still not sure of what we saw until the final encounter in the lockers. But you decide how you want people to feel ^^"

BTW having a peaceful mode would be a spoiler about the entity but never mind.

Looking for what's coming next !

This game offered really great atmosphere, like a series of dreams. I enjoyed just spending time slowly exploring. I have to imagine the protagonist died falling down the hole and ended up in some kind of hell where he is left in peace everywhere except the toilet because he must have complained about his wife spending too long in the bathroom one too many times.

I have an AMD Radeon Vega 8.0 graphics card on an HP laptop (8 GB RAM), 60 Hz refresh.  I had to take my resolution down to 1600x900 to be able to jump from the diving board to the ledge/balcony. I noticed even when I was not moving, there would be shaky cam and the sound of footsteps, even in the intro above ground. Underground I thought it might be a ghost but I only noticed it when out of the water.

I didn't really notice the shadow figures at first except in the locker rooms and the one sighting in the mall. When I went through again, I saw a couple in the staff only/reservoir/slide areas but they blink out really quick, so it might just be my laptop's poor specs at work. 

Anyhow, the shadows and the puzzles were just gravy. The meat of this game is in the environments and atmosphere. I'm looking forward to the rest. Thank you.

I would like to be able to swim past the underwater grill in that pool with inclined ceiling in one of the rooms of the water reservoir level. Maybe a door in the grill would be fine.

Oh... by the way... after playing for hours I think I know what’s the story behind: you play a soul in Purgatory. This would explain everything: why the phone call at the beginning is in black like if it was a memory from the past; why you don’t die nor suffer any physical harm; why the space is nonlinear in the lazy river and in the locker room; why the “shadow” can open and close doors in the locker room and why you can do the same (both of you are souls in Purgatory); why you feel loneliness and anemoia... suddenly, everything in the game is crystal clear if you are a soul in Purgatory...

Just got done playing through the demo and loved it! 

After hearing about liminal spaces, I started looking for games to experience that unnerving feeling of liminal spaces and this game is just what I was looking for.

Pro's: 

• Atmosphere was spot on, really enjoyed the locker room and lazy river segments. 
• the Ambient background music and sound effects were top notch and fit the atmosphere very well. 
• Voice acting was pretty good. 
• The "entity" was a good addition and just added to the unnerving atmosphere. 

Suggestions: 

• I know the puzzle's aren't the main focus of the game, but it would be cool to see them fleshed out a bit more. 

Overall, I really enjoyed playing through it and can't wait to playthrough the rest when it's finished! Awesome work!

I absolutely loved this game. It was a fun experience and I hope there are more procedurally generated hells to explore in the future.
The biggest issue I had was with footstep sounds. I think it's really important for a game that relies on ambience to have proper material specific sounds, like in the end with carpet vs orange tiles, or with the puddles in the beginning and even the start of the game with pavement and grass.

I look forward to more :)

It might be a big ask, I don't know how difficult it might be to do this, but maybe also add some simple water physics to make waves as you move around in it.

Love the aesthetics, you did a solid job for a solo crew. Looking forward to the updates.

oh, and another +1 on the 'No Thank You, Shadow Person' option. plz.