Pools

There is a specific, primal kind of dread that lives in the grout of a public swimming pool after hours. It is the smell of over-chlorinated water, the hum of a distant filtration system, and the unsettling realization that a space designed for crowds is currently, aggressively vacant. This is the psychological territory claimed by Tensori in their experimental title, POOLS.

Emerging from the digital folk-horror tradition of the “Backrooms” and “Poolrooms” internet phenomena, POOLS is less of a traditional “game” and more of a playable architectural installation. It strips away the baggage of modern game design—there is no HUD, no skill tree, no inventory management, and zero combat. Instead, players are dropped into a sprawling, labyrinthine complex of tiled hallways and cavernous aquatics centers. The market positioning here is bold: Tensori is betting that the “vibe” of existential solitude is enough to carry a short experience.

The game is divided into seven distinct chapters, each functioning as a curated descent into the uncanny. While other titles in the “walking simulator” genre often lean on voice-over narration or environmental storytelling via discarded notes to provide context, POOLS maintains a stubborn, meditative silence. You are not there to solve a mystery or save the world; you are there to exist in a space that feels fundamentally “wrong.” In a market saturated with jump-scare-heavy horror, POOLS stands out by refusing to give the player the catharsis of a monster. The tension never breaks; it simply accumulates. This is high-fidelity psychological realism that targets specific phobias—submechanophobia and claustrophobia—with precision, positioning itself as a dedicated “liminal space” simulator for a generation raised on eerie internet aesthetics.

• Hyper-Realistic Visual Fidelity: The game utilizes advanced lighting and texture work to make every white tile and water reflection feel tactile and unsettlingly real.
• Immersive 3D Soundscapes: Eschewing music entirely, the audio focuses on the rhythmic “slap” of wet footsteps and the echoing splashes that suggest you might not be as alone as you look.
• A “Vibes-Based” Progression: Instead of puzzles or keys, the “goal” is simply to navigate the architecture, making progress a matter of spatial awareness and psychological endurance.

To understand POOLS, one must first accept the “walking simulator” label not as a critique, but as a manifesto. Most horror games use the environment as a stage for an antagonist; in POOLS, the environment is the antagonist. The gameplay loop is simple: walk, observe, turn a corner, and hope the next room makes more sense than the last. But within this simplicity lies a keen understanding of how architecture can manipulate human emotion.

The Architecture of Anxiety

Tensori’s level design applies the “uncanny valley” not to faces, but to spaces. The hallways are just a bit too long; the ceilings are just a bit too high. The game is built to create non-Euclidean-adjacent feelings—the sense of having circled back to where you started, only to find the water level has risen six inches. By removing the traditional UI, the developer forces players to look at the world, not at a compass. This creates a sense of onboarding friction that is entirely intentional. Players feel lost because they are lost, and without a “map” button to save them, they are forced to engage with the tiles, the drains, and the ladders with an intensity rarely seen in more traditional titles.

The Weight of Silence

The decision to omit background music is perhaps the game’s most effective design choice. In most horror titles, the soundtrack acts as a safety rail, signaling when to be scared and when to relax. POOLS removes that rail. Every sound is generated by interaction with the world. The acoustic latency of the echoes in a large vaulted pool room is designed to create a persistent sense of being followed—a stop in walking, and the echo takes a half-second to catch up, breeding constant, neck-prickling paranoia. It’s an ASMR experience curdled into something threatening. The “squelch” of footsteps on wet porcelain is captured with such clarity that it becomes a rhythmic hypnotic device, lulling players into a trance before a sudden change in water depth jolts them back to reality.

Minimalism vs. Engagement

Critics of the genre will inevitably point to the lack of “agency.” Players aren’t “doing” much in POOLS besides moving forward. However, this critique misses the point of the existential dread the game seeks to evoke. The lack of traditional mechanics—puzzles, keys, combat—removes the “gamer” brain’s ability to gamify the fear. Players can’t optimize their path; they can’t “beat” the architecture. They can only endure it. This makes the seven-chapter structure feel less like a series of levels and more like a series of psychological states.

That said, the short runtime is a double-edged sword. For some, it is the perfect “one-sitting” experience that doesn’t overstay its welcome. For others, the lack of a traditional narrative payoff or a “boss” might make the $9.79 price point feel steep. Still, the store rating of 4.5 out of 5 from over a thousand ratings suggests a real hunger for this kind of pure aesthetic immersion. It’s a bold rejection of the “more is more” philosophy of modern AAA development, proving that a single, well-rendered tile can be more evocative than a hundred scripted explosions.

Visually, POOLS is a technical showcase for what can be achieved when a developer narrows their focus. By limiting the palette to whites, blues, and grays, and the geometry to primarily rectangular tiles, Tensori has been able to push global illumination and reflection mapping to their limits. The way light refracts through the turquoise water and bounces off the curved walls of a tunnel is striking.

By design, the high-fidelity reflections demand a fair amount of hardware, so older or mid-range machines may need to make compromises. The UI—or lack thereof—is the ultimate expression of skeuomorphic rejection. There is nothing between the player and the tiles. Even the “menu” is a stark, utilitarian affair that refuses to break the spell.

• Steam: The definitive way to experience POOLS. Mouse-and-keyboard precision allows for the slow, deliberate “panning” of the camera that the game’s cinematography demands, and a good pair of headphones goes a long way.
• Nintendo: The Switch port makes sensible compromises, but the hardware’s limitations mean the lighting—the game’s most critical asset—takes a hit. The portability is a nice novelty, but a small screen in a brightly lit room works against the experience.
• iOS: A workable option, but touch-interface friction is inherent to navigating a complex 3D space with thumbs on glass—a mismatch for a game that relies so heavily on the sensation of “being there.”

POOLS isn’t a game you “play” so much as a place you “visit”—and then try to leave. Tensori has stripped away the distractions of modern gaming to reveal a raw, architectural heart of darkness. While its brevity and lack of traditional mechanics will alienate those looking for a “challenge,” its commitment to its singular, unsettling vision never wavers. We rate it a solid, flawed-in-ways-that-matter entry: a haunting, deeply uncomfortable exercise in digital minimalism that we recommend to the right audience only.