Way Down In The Hole: Tunnel, A Free Soundscape Game

Do you like long, slow, uncut shots in films where the camera moves steadily through a dark, intimate, and eerie hole and through an unsettling soundscape? You know, the sort of thing where you think it's going to be inside an ear or a bottom but then feel confident nah, it's fine, then come back around to suspecting it really is guts isn't it. I like this one from series 2 of Twin Peaks (consider yourself on spoiler alert).

I also like Tunnel [official site], a short free game about journeying through a murky, mysterious tunnel and a moody soundscape. Play it with headphones.

It's a dark, bubbling tunnel of hard lines and jagged protusions. We're always following light which illuminates the gloom, forever just around the next corner. It's very pretty. Movement is slow and deliberate with a fair bit of inertia, feeling a bit like moving in liquid. Or maybe being tiny. Or huge. What even are we? And where? And what are those things moving in the darkness? It's all murk and bubbling, burbling noises. Really, do wear headphones.

I played creator Tom Cooper's sculptural exploration game Road to Ruin a while back and had meant to post about that, but apparently never did. Oh dear! Well, go play that too. It's a surreal architectural landscape covered in sculptures, a non-city of mysterious machinery. Heck, now I look he has another explore-o-soundscape out, Container. Well aren't we all lucky!

Thanks to Forest Ambassador for pointing Tunnel out.