HALDANE-4

Went in expecting nothing and got properly spooked. Text characters, that's all it is, and it still crawled under my skin. Coffee's length, if that. Do it with the sound on.

Monospace horror is close to a lost art and this one has the grammar down. Text characters pull off the job that lighting engines routinely fumble. Audio is generated rather than sampled. Nothing on screen is wasted. Short and tight with no fat on it at all, and I love that it commits to the constraint rather than apologising for it.

Descending alone under an ice shelf tells half the story before your fingers reach the keys. Cold. Dark. Nobody coming for you. Rendering all that in characters on a grid makes it worse, and worse is what you want here, because your head fills in whatever the screen refuses to draw.

A few minutes long, and it's a story you walk down rather than a game you play. Systems? There are none, so look elsewhere if that's what you came for. The restraint reads as deliberate rather than as cover for thin content, and with the writing forced to carry everything, it does. Give it the time it asks for. It isn't asking for much.

Sorry but I don't really get it.

A solo descent under the Antarctic ice, told in text, is about as far from my usual as it gets. The shape it takes is kind, though. Four minutes, and nothing in there wants fast hands from you. Text and generated sound and a slow cold feeling that hangs about afterwards. Given the choice I'd rather sit with dread than be startled by it, and this leans my way.