Liminalcore Steam Charts & Stats

To me this game does not feel like a liminal horror game so much as a typical, carnival ride horror game with an arbitrarily surreal theme; which makes it just vaguely liminal. Early on in the experience there is a moment where the player hears an intriguing sound. In the exact same second as they hear the sound, the player immediately gets a Steam achievement which commemorates them hearing that sound; the pop up achievement going so far as to point out in plain text that the player heard the sound in that moment. This completely destroys the atmosphere of the event by instantly pulling the player's attention away from the game as it happens, and breaking the fourth wall in such a tactless way it's as if the developers were worried the player might not understand what the sound meant; so they give the player some live developer commentary via a Steam achievement pop up. The game only just started at this point there was barely even any atmosphere build up, and they've already spoiled it. Immediately the pool room environments come across as being very unbelievable. The washed out lighting and inhospitable structure of each room does not make it feel like a remotely real place in any regard, just an ominous video game sandbox made for the sole purpose of being walked through. Sometimes the next path forward is slightly hidden or the player encounters an isolated dead end, which pointlessly squanders time and atmosphere on the player backtracking to figure out where they even need to go. The default walking speed is excruciatingly slow which encourages the player to just run all the time, which also detracts from the atmosphere. The pacing and layout of the world feels arbitrary, the player advancing through different areas at varying rates with no particular sense of build up or sprawl to the environment. Everything is just there, sequentially laid out for the player to encounter; there's no sensible reason for it existing beyond that. Like a theme park ride. The game is very obviously linear to an extent, with the main branching paths being tedious dead ends, and so once again it altogether feels less like a genuine surreal experience and more like a game intended to be played. I was able to trigger certain sound effects multiple times in a row and certain sounds are outright reused, adding onto the general feeling of the game just being a game. Some elements of the world such as the dramatic anguished statues are tacky and contrast sharply with the otherwise more thematic pool room fixtures. There is not much subtly to a lot of the events, with one noise occurrence in particular happening a variety of times under identical conditions just in different locations. Growing tired of the game I vowed that the next time the developers reused this exact same noise event I would quit; and within a minute it happened yet again so I quit. The game just feels like a carnival ride. To me although it has some interesting bits, especially from what is shown in the trailer, these small strengths are sprinkled across an otherwise bland and generic horror game walking simulator. The experience fails to capture the immersion and tone of a surreal liminal environment, coming across more like a shallow imitation. The developers sabotaging their own atmospheric event with a Steam achievement pop up that immediately drowns out the audio players are supposed to hear, while giving them a tactless transcript of what the audio was; is the most memorable thing I encountered, in a bad way. If you're interested in finding some games that I do positively recommend they can be found on my curator page [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38950844-Anoemalous/] here [/url].

This was my first time playing this type of game. I really enjoyed it. The graphics were so beautiful. The sounds were so eerie. I really want to play more of this style game after what I played! Thank you for such an awesome game! I made a play through over on my Youtube channel for anyone interested in watching a no commentary play through. As always, every gamer plays differently. Please consider supporting the dev's and purchasing the game. https://youtu.be/QTda0d-FA8Q

This game is both entertaining and terrifying. The graphics are overall very good aside from some very minor texture blending issues on some of the arched tiles in chapter 1; my computer ran it smoothly on the highest settings, and you get so sucked into the atmosphere. Despite the simplicity of the game, the sound design and both claustrophobic and agoraphobic level design create this unsettling, awful, creeping feeling almost constantly. I would definitely say it's scarier than things like FNAF and Amnesia, purely based on the fact that you are making up the monster in your head. I have only made it through level 1, but I am eagerly waiting to get through another level later. I keep expecting to see things in the shadows, and it makes me want to explore, but some places are truly rear-clenching.

This is a great liminal game! Good balance of unease and the level design is very well thought out and original in a genre that's really hard to deviate from. Very high replay ability factor.

This game is an absolute blast. I love how I can play this game for literal hours and there are still so much to see. The graphics, the sound effects, everything in this game is so good, and it makes it so eerie too. This game is a literal 10/10 I would 100% recommend. I am just questioning as to how I can turn my microphone on in this game? I really want to try it out myself. ^^

A beautiful, short but sweet liminal game with some genuinely unnerving moments.

It was priced a bit high for an experience such as this... but honestly it was worth it! It started off where I thought it was going to be pretentious, but somehow it pulls it off, and drifts slowly into yet something else altogether. Parts of it were ominous and beautiful, and I say this as a fan of Wayne Barlowe's hell. Bravo, truly awesome and definite creepy vibes throughout. Let go and just lose yourself and you will be rewarded. I stayed up way too late to finish it, but damn... great game experience, trippy head space.

I think all of these games can coexist, and there shouldn't [i]really[/i] be a need to compare them.... That being said, this title very much seems to have been trying to emulate the vibes of POOLS, which tracks if you read the description of the STEAM page. Reading it, you might not realize that a [i]majority[/i] of this game is in the POOLS vibe, down to the similar font of the title. If you liked POOLS, like me, then, hey, this is more of that! There are chapters yet to be released, apparently, at the time of writing this; although, there have been some delays in that regard. It seems like these missing chapters are expansions of the "Faded Memories" section. As it currently stands, I have 100% the game with the existing 4 Chapters and it took just shy of 2.5 hours, including moments where I'd step away for a few minutes and leave the game going. I got it on sale for $5.59. I think it is a reasonable price either way, but everyone loves a good sale. I feel there is not as much polish and direction in this title. The ideas are here, sure, but the rest gets a little arbitrary feeling at times and I did hit a few rough performance spots. Also, I really cannot emphasize enough that the inclusion of that stupid frog (not the realistic looking one) takes any notion of seriousness out of the game for me--but it is what it is. If you are a fan of liminal space exploration games, I can recommend picking this up. I will say, though, if you haven't played POOLS, you should play that first since this game takes heavy inspiration from it. We will see about these new chapters whenever/if ever they get released, but there is plenty to explore as it is. If nothing else, you can get yourself some achievements and take some nice screenshots.

This game was honestly one of the most immersive liminal games I've played, every single moment I was on edge and felt so uneasy and uncomfortable. It gives you the sense that you're being watched constantly, or followed. Each chapter is so different from the last, it almost feels like 4 different 'backrooms' games. 5*

This game brings a very new type of horror genre to the forefront. Liminal spaces, a new and very unique type of horror that takes spaces that we see in every day life and changes them and expands on them to make them recognizable but not quite right. Recommend playing this game and seeing what you think.