POOLS News

Thank you

First week after launch is now behind us, and what can we say - the launch was successful, beyond all our expectations.

The amount of positive reviews and feedback we've received so far is absolutely overwhelming.

We are really grateful to all contributors, Beta testers, Patreon supporters, content creators, journalists, reviewers, everyone in our discord and everyone who have bought the game.

We will continue development of POOLS and post updates.

Thank you everyone for your support.

To celebrate, let's enjoy cake with these distinguished gentlemen.
There is a cake, it's just behind the camera. We promise.

PS. The thumbnail screenshot for this Steam announcement was by our dedicated fan - JANITOR.
Here is the original:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3237987385

Eerie new Steam horror game puts a fresh spin on The Backrooms

The Backrooms has been one of the most interesting horror concepts to watch evolve in recent years. Initially thought up as an extradimensional space made up of off-yellow walls and the occasional monster peeking out from behind corners, the idea of the Backrooms has spread to other locations that feel 'off'; eerie liminal spaces that feel empty but not quite empty enough to relax. Alongside shopping malls and hotel hallways, family swimming pools have often been a subject of this, and POOLS has effectively run with this concept to make a full-fledged game of it.

Read the rest of the story...

Update notes (29.04.2024)

Added dynamic ambient water surface movement / wave sounds
Updated the activation conditions of some achievements making them less annoying to unlock
Slight adjustments to audio mixing for some environmental sounds in chapter 2 and chapter 6
Fixed a bug where saved screen resolution setting would not load correctly when starting the game application
Fixed a bug where screen resolution would change to the highest supported refresh rate of the selected resolution when loading into a chapter
Fixed a bug in chapter 3 where the player could climb and get stuck on the slide at the start
Fixed a bug in chapter 6 where the player could get stuck behind a safety railing

Update notes (28.04.2024)

Fixed a bug where "Invert y-axis" setting would be ignored when starting a new chapter
Fixed a bug where frame rate limit selection would not be saved when modifying the setting from main menu screen
Fixed a bug in chapter 2 where players could walk up inside a yellow slide and get stuck
Enabled V-sync by default for new players
Default lighting quality setting updated from "High" to "Medium" for new players
Frame rate limit dropdown menu is now not interactable if V-sync is enabled
Adjusted objects positions in chapter 6 to prevent clipping

[h3]Notes about V-sync and target frame rate:[/h3]
In main menu screen, V-sync is disabled by default and target frame is locked to 60. This is intended behavior to prevent unnecessary system load.
In loading screens, V-sync is disabled by default and target frame is locked to 30.

If V-sync is enabled, the game's target frame rate is determined by the window mode setting and display resolution setting:

Fullscreen: target frame rate is current display resolution selection's maximum refresh rate
Borderless windowed and windowed: target frame rate is the maximum supported refresh rate of your display regardless of the resolution selection

Update notes (27.04.2024)

Adjusted German translation
Fixed a bug where player could climb along the edge of the double spiral slide and get stuck in Chapter 2
Fixed a situation where player would teleport back to a ladder after camera rewind sequence ends in Chapter 4
Fixed a possible way to go out of bounds and get stuck in Chapter 5
Fixed a bug where "Error In Production" achievement was practically impossible to unlock