Portal 2: Dream Pools (Fell into the Back Rooms!)
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
- As an urban explorer, we enter a recently abandoned rec center with a reputation for strange disappearances. Despite getting lost, the dream-like liminal halls would almost be calming... but I'm pretty sure there's someone else down here with me.
Download the map here: steamcommunity...
Join the Discord: / discord
Thanks for playing! I'm hoping to create some more liminal space stuff, but I don't think I will be making it for Source as it struggled enough during the creation of this map as it was (it was reaching a lot of engine limits). I'm in the process of porting this level to UE4 (with some improvements, new areas and unused ideas to keep it fresh). If I can manage to port it, I will definitely expand the scope of the project to include other liminal themes as levels such as the backrooms themselves.
Good stuff.
dude this map is amazing !! can't wait to see what u do in the future
I hope you do a lot of the backrooms levels that would be so cool!!
You made a nice map! Btw how do I fix the missing texture bricks?
why you don't import it to UE5? good work btw
That orangeish-colored outdoor lighting is made by sodium vapor lights. Horror-suspense writer *Dean Koontz* rarely missed the opportunity to describe them in his novels.
That he did
Thanks for putting a name to them! I know LEDs are better in every practical sense, but they just don't look as good to me!
Yes.🤗
Good old sodium arc lamps. We still have some here but LED's are slowly taking over.
@@TheLibrarianYT Yeah, and most of them hurt your eyes, because they weren't really designed for that purpose. Their emission spectrum is too blue.
20:14 - I absolutely love the fact that you got scared so much that for a brief moment the taskbar was visible.
The map changing from clean, pristine and sinister; to dark, run-down and STILL sinister is a wonderful parallel to the Portal games, probably wasn't intentional. but I still think it's cool
17:30 Portal, and Portal 2, don't usually let you swim. Most bodies of water are either deadly acid or highly tainted water, both of which will kill you. Plus, there's a line from Portal where Glados tells you to not submerge the Portal Gun.
why doesn't the portal gun like water or acid?
@@stanleybochenek1862 They never explain why. I'd assume it'd electrocute you.
@@Techhunter_Talon or tear a hole in reality
@@literallyglados a glitch in the matrix or escaping into the backrooms who knows
@@stanleybochenek1862 - why would you put an electronic device underwater, anyways?
Ay, you played it!
I had so much fun testing it so I'm glad you did get around to playing it yourself and more importantly I'd argue that you had fun doing so!
spoilers below:
The spooks actually start really early but they're optional and fairly easy to miss which I think adds so much extra charm to the map ;)
I like the fact that it stays true to the Portal universe too. Aperture Science is definitely the company to make a leisure center with an expansive underground testing area.
13:13 Yes, swim-up bars are not uncommon at resorts. They're usually outside, and it's oddly common for them to be tiki bars - though that's likely a by-product of the resort being on a tropical island somewhere. They do have stools to perch on while you drink at the bar and dangle your feet. My problem with it is just it being _inside,_ with such sterile decor. That's what makes that particular one unreal.
As for why it's so common to dream of places like this... I don't know, because I _don't_ dream of places like this. Oh, I get the dream-logic geometry, and settings that flow into each other despite having very little to relate them conceptually, but I have never dreamed of Poolrooms or Infinite Mallspaces, or the like. Just doesn't factor into my dreamscape, even after getting into liminal artwork and adding the awareness of such things to my psyche. The closest I EVER got was when I was 3 or 4, when I had a recurring dream for some several months of being chased through an infinite maze by a monster that I could never completely get away from. The walls were pitch-black, as were the ceiling and floor, with the only indication of where I could go marked by bright neon doorframes as wide and tall as the hall, more like blocky archways floating in a void than doorframes. No matter how many times I turned corners, no matter how fast I ran, no matter how much help from similarly trapped entities I got, the monster was always just a few hall-lengths behind me, or suddenly about to round the corner in front of me. I fled that unseen creature night after night. One night, I had the briefest flicker of lucidity, and I thought "not this one again," which brought me up short. It gave me just enough of a window of rationality that I stopped running and just... turned around. If this thing was going to chase me at night forever, I wanted to see its face, to call it by name.
It turned out to be something like Gossamer from Looney Tunes - a creature I was NEVER afraid of, mind you - and like Gossamer, the moment I showed resistance rather than fear, it turned tail and ran away, vanishing into the black-and-neon halls.
I never dreamed of that space again.
it's interesting how breaking the routine of recurring dreams can snap you out of them
as a kid i used to have recurring dreams/ nightmares where i was at the bottom of our basement stairs, trying to run up them but being held in place by something unseen
one night i looked behind me and my dream revealed that the thing holding me back was my brother's friend holding the back of my shirt as a sort of prank
the dream lost it's hold over me with that and i never had it again
Dreams like that are weirder and creepier than liminal spaces. It's as if something is trying to tell you something in your dreams until you resist in a way that it thinks you don't want anything to do with what the thing is trying to say, causing it to stop and leave you alone.
I think we now have a new form of supernatural on our hands.
the thing following you endlessly was actually so terrifying. id normally think clipping through the walls would be cheap but it really worked for this.
Im sorry for telling you this. The reason why people are subscribing to your channel is because of your profile picture. Your subscibers are men. They are hoping that one day you will upload some video about yourself, that they can view as they would view pornographic content. They see no real value in you. People are not subscribing, because they think your comments are really good, that those comments reflect someone with a good personality. That does not mean that you dont have a good personality though. Its just that your subscribers cant know if you do, or not. Sorry, if you didnt want to know this...
If you think, that im wierd aswell for checking your channel... Yes, I am, but for a completely different reason! I saw your profile picture, and realised that you should have a lot of people liking your comment, cuz of your profil pic, but your comment wasnt old enough for that, so i checked your channel to confirm my suspicions (and saw your channel description). Maybe weirder than the people who subscribe to you lol, i dont care.
I know that you know, that I just want to help you, but you still think its was not nice of me to write this.
I promise, that this thought will only haunt you if you care why people like you. If you dont care, you will forget in less than a year.
Sorry again.
That thing was actually one of the most unsettling things I've ever seen in a video game, not gonna lie
@@domonkosludvig3314 No man, that's just you
@@henrymckean8248 So why do you think people are subscribing to her? I need a very detailed answer. Not one sentence.
If you made the comment because you actually agree with me, but you are afraid that she might stay away from men (i find this scenario more likely, since you told me that I think like the men I described, when i clearly explained why I checked her channel out), then dont worry. :) She wont change her worldview that easily, I promise.
@@domonkosludvig3314 i bet you make every female cashier u talk to very, very uncomfortable. not every selfie is a thirst trap. weirdo.
That shadow figure was horrifying. It’s like, you feel like you can get a read on how fast it’s going, but then when you look back, it’s always closer than you would think. It’s like it rubber bands or gets faster when you’re not looking. Utterly unsettling, frighteningly clever game design
20:34 I absolutely love that startle, its a type that'll catch someone off guard if they're looking away. Better they be looking for the scare, but otherwise a great startle.
Know what’s interesting to me? It’s a portal game without any portal gun, but the way the impossible geometry of world works makes me think they’re using the portal mechanics in the background, especially that gravity shift turning a drop into a hallway, that was nice 👍
So here's my take on Liminal Spaces, specifically the "Dream pool" idea.
When you were a child, did you ever go to a swimming pool? It was a big day out, right? Quite exciting, getting to swim around, go on a slide or see whatever bonus activities they had like a hot tub or sauna. If you were younger or inexperienced it might be a little daunting because you aren't good at swimming, so you're here to learn.
The sensory aesthetic of swimming pools is totally unique, with the tiles everywhere, most of the walls being angular and with tall roofs, wide open areas and weird geometry and architecture, not to mention the smell of chlorine, the texture of things like pool floats and those deckchairs.
Because of the unique atmosphere and aesthetic of these places, it will leave a lasting impression on people. Its not one that is something important, like your earliest birthdays, but it IS so weird and unique that it will stick out in your head. This is why it invokes Nostalgia. I reminds you of a specific place, usually when you are young, that by unintentional design is noteworthy.
Plus, being young, your emotions become exaggerated. You are smaller, and those roofs seem so much taller than they actually are. Opaque windows make sense because its to stop people staring into the pool from the outside, but it becomes a feature of your memories all the same. Childlike wonder would invent fun and excitement and blow things out of proportion, but also might bring back memories of dread. If you slipped and fell, hurting yourself...or you were scared to go down the slide...or jump from the diving board...or swim down into the deep end...or maybe you got lost, split up from your parents, and wandered around this strange, wet, warm labyrinth and it became terrifying.
In the mind of a child, these concepts warped, because they are left to marinate in your mind, untouched by your consciousness for so long, with emotions tied to them that might not make sense when you are older. And when something triggers them again, such as a dream or a piece of liminal artwork, what do we see? What do we feel? What does our minds create?
Pools of infinite depth leading down into ominous darkness. Tunnels filled with roaring water that feel like a monster's yawning mouth. A feeling of anxiety, of looking for someone or of not being alone, of being lost in an endless maze of repeating, almost alien architecture. A feeling of nostalgia, wonder and anxiety, deprived of context...because that context existed many years ago, and you grew up, while the memories of the emotions didn't.
14:30 Man just got flashbanged so hard, he went back to Brazil
As a resident of Brazil, I can confirm that, if we get flashbanged hard enough, we go back to Brazil.
Usually, the threat being revealed makes it less scary, but this time, it made it somehow even more terrifying
when he turned around and the shadow was right behind him it would make me jump
18:00 you know your doing a good job at horror when you can give the librarian a new fear
Here's a terrifying thought: the entity following you could float, as if the air around it was underwater, and it could move through walls. So why was the furniture strewn about?
Hello can I ask you a question if you don’t mind?
@@jamespatrick20906 You just did, so go ahead,? Or do you mean Librarian? In which case don't do it under my comment, it's not as likely to be seen that way.
I'm really interested in his question... Patrick James you may ask me if you'd like!
I was so anxious during this one. That first white flash really scared the hell out of me, too. It triggered some lizard brain gaming instinct that made me think a monster was attacking you or something lol.
13:23
Back when I was young I remember going to a public pool where there was a small food kiosk right in the middle of one of the big pools. There were tall enough chairs aligned around the kiosk, where your body can stay dry and dangle your legs on water. You can order food and drinks while being wet, just careful not to fall into the water.
Yup. I've had multiple dreams of places like this as a kid, complete with intermittent flying ability.
Never been scared of backrooms or liminal spaces, but out of bounds in video games holy sweet jesus the void terrifies me to the point of allmost turning away when you got close to it. Im not that easy to scare, much less to disturb, but theres just something in that infinite void that makes my entire brain go full Usain Bolt Mode, because satan himself is gonna spawn his garrysmod nextbots and jumpscare me the second im out of bounds.
The scare at the end is kind of brilliant, the one motion activated light activates when the figure passes through it.
I also miss the old high pressure sodium street lights from the past too. That orange light is very nostalgic. But I do understand that LEDs are more energy efficient.
Imagine having to clean the grout in this place...
Followed development of this map on your server. And damn, thanks a lot for making a channel for Source maps development. Amazing piece
What a fantastic map. That chase sequence was absolutely terrifying in an oddly primal way.
That first drop into the facility totally made my stomach drop, wow. Also the design of black silhouette with white eyes has never scared me, its my favorite tbh- but the way they did it was soooo scary lmao
i love the set up of having that motion light at the very beginning as a piece of extra detail only for it to end up being the final scare of the map
mannn I absolutely love these kind of maps. I'm really trying to create something like this of my own, but I struggle with the aspect of the models and the thinking that comes with creating them.
your enthusiasm is so infectious. I love this video
"Glub like you've never glubbed before!"
I shall use this in my swimming endeavors for self motivation.
ngl i love when you got scared at 20:13 you tabbed out
Thank you so much for making this video! I love every moment, and also I learn a lot about what is creepy and scary!
This level was so good that at parts I actually forgot this was portal 2 and not a more open-ended source game like GMod
I personally haven't had a dream where I've seen a bizarre pool area, I have however seen a very weirdly made mall of sorts. where the stairs have random steps that are cut from existence and just go down to nothing and the center of the walkways where the shops are have rail tracks with trains that occasionally pass though at high speed. I might have to have a try at hammer to see if I can recreate that.
23:50 did no one else hear that?
10:05 that is actually Portal 2's world portals in action, it allows you to link 2 locations in ways which would normally be impossible.
I was so emerged in the video that when you spoke into the mic while underwater I got so startled that I jumped out of my seat.
Fun video, loved the "this looks like heavens light shining down" then bam lol perfect timing. I honestly never knew there were custom portal 2 maps haha i've never been much a portal fan barely playing either, this was cool though.
I love _how_ you narrate. Makes me feel less self conscious about using 'big words' in normal conversation.
I love the design of the world, kind of like the real world but glitched - a kind of reinterpretation by some force which doesn't fully understand how the real world works, so it takes the forms, structures, materials, objects, and so on from the real world, but combines them in illogical ways. Sort of like the creatures in Annihilation - mismatched combinations, or like those AI image generators we keep seeing recently. Perhaps the silhouette creature is trying to create a trap which a human would fall for, so it tries to imitate the habitat of a human, but because it is so inhuman itself it fails to get the overall picture right, and can't understand why what it has created is wrong and unsettling to us.
This game is very similar to Anemoiapolis. In both, you fall into a mysterious place full of unending pools and you're stalked by a shadow person until it eventually starts chasing you near the end. But at the same time, they're quite different. This game is much more dreamlike. A place you can never escape from. Places change with each turn of a corner. Things like bars and chairs are put in bizarre locations. Every pool room is so similar in style it's disorientating. Despite how big the map is, the whole game feels claustrophobic. In comparison, Anemoiapolis presents itself as though it's a real place that has simply and inexplicably been abandoned. Each location is different, and though it's just a series of unending pools, there's a sense of progression to it. You can sort of envision people actually staying there like a resort. The locked doors in Anemoiapolis leading to connecting corridors make the space feel like it's supposed to be more interconnected, it just isn't anymore. While both experiences are largely linear, Dream Pools feels a bit more like an endless maze of confusing locations (in a good way) while Anemoiapolis offers a bit more eye candy for liminal space lovers.
As far as the shadow figure chase scene goes, I prefer the setting of Anemoiapolis' chase better. The cramped, dark bathroom was horrifying, especially after everything else was so big and spacious, plus the creepy sounds of doors opening and water running. But, I feel that the shadow figure in Dream Pools is much more intimidating. Maybe it's the eyes. It comes at you immediately and is much quicker. The shadow in Anemoiapolis takes a while to catch up and you can run through the whole section and never see or hear it once.
Anemoiapolis is still in development, so I can't speculate on what the final product will be. It would be great to see this map updated with a better engine. Both are great games for those of us who enjoy liminal space experiences.
When you mentioned imperfection- that's what I like about liminal horror as an idea.
A space that supposed to feel safe and like if it was meant for habbitation by someone but having some inhuman imperfections in geometry- unnescessary multiplications, seemingly pointless corridors, spacial oddities.
I look at stuff like Backrooms as locations caused by collective human unconcioussness- an endless house or workplace that appeared because that's what humanity percieves as normal and some dreamscape reacts to this perception, forming into endless version of dreams of inteligent beings.
THere's also the fear of purposlesness- I mean it in a way of humanity being afraid of things they don't know a purpose of.
Imagine if you will an endless series of warehouses, blocks of flats, subburbian housing units all assembled into megastructure in a place you can accidentally enter.
People will ask themselves and everyone else "Who and Why built this?", but they inevitably fall into dread and discomfort as they find out noone built these things and noone had any plan for them. They are, and that's why people are afraid of them
Portal 2 has so many good custom maps for this type of content! Would love to see more.
Wow this looks just like what being in the backrooms is described like! What a fun demonstration! Poor you lmao
Oh no! It’s The Librarian’s worst nightmare!
lol
I love that map!
It's like Anemoiapolis
is nobody gonna mention the gigantic slipping hazard when combining wet/humid enviroments with smooth tile?
"CAUTION! Wet floor."
The Proper People fall into the backrooms
7:35 you can smell the chlorine? that smell actually comes from when chlorine combines with various body fluids, including urine because chlorine normally has absolutely no smell
its actually the same with any metal too - metal doesn't have an actual smell, and what ppl are r smelling is the reaction it has with skin oils
@@spitgorge2021 people also don't smell (body odor), it's bacteria that begins to gather in your sweat and consume it...then releasing gasses that have the smell of body odor
I played through this mod about a month ago, and dang was it cool. Thanks for sharing the experience!
When the chase started I genuinetly felt chills, which is really rare from videos for me. Couldn't suppress my desire for b-hopping tho x`)
13:15 can confirm that this is a real thing, i remember me and my family went to a hotel in mexico for a vacation, and they did have a bar in one of the pools.
Just started watching as it got dark out. Love the video librarian, hope you continue to grow as a creator!
Liminal pool rooms be like, "do we swim here, or am I in the mall fountain?"
the scariest part about the swimming sections is the knowledge that you could hit a dead end, turn around to where you came from, and hit another dead end where the exit should be
These pools look more nightclub fun then the scary type.
Amazing! As a child of the 90s, I never would want to leave. My longest swim time was 6 hours straight before I was forcibly removed 😅🤭 the whole time while watching this i was thinking about which room would be my home.
Yes! He’s confirmed he’ll play Animeopolis!
Okay, so I've had weird dreams where I'll walk into either a Walmart or a school bathroom, and it will turn out to be a huge expansive space with many showers, or a total labyrinth of toilet stalls.
Yeah, reminds me of the world space of silent hill, when you go to the other world. The architecture is odd and everything's rusty
The worst part about sharing your fears online is people using it against you, trying to freak you out. That's why you have to say something like "my greatest phobia is beautiful nude women"
I think this is the first video I saw from you.
just a neat little fact
The pitch black area of the poolrooms is the only somewhat dangerous area of the poolrooms in the back rooms lore
that was an incredible map damn
portal 2's version of source is perfect for this kind of thing
Can agree with that. It’s a more refined engine that went through both L4D games as well as HL2. CS:GO and Portal 2 are the “definitive” versions of Source 1, that’s for sure.
never before have i been so stressed and freaked out by a black shadow glowing white eyes guy that doesnt even have a damn animation, its just so out of place and singularly focused on u that it activates my flight response so hard i had to pause the video
nostalgia is soft focus reality like a generalized memory &
dreams are proceduraly generalized memories made a reality
Hi Librarian, hope you’re well! Great video as always
Is it just me who had a weird feeling while walking around in old fortnite? Like someone was watching me, but not a player. The sounds of crickets and your own footsteps, sometimes I felt relieved when I saw another player. Only to go back to that creep feeling again after you kill them.
Thought of a game/map idea, basically you explore aperture or black mesa after the combine invasion, when humanity is starting to recuperate. No idea for the story but I think it'd be an interesting idea.
the part where you started getting chased down was terrifying
25:30 something about this door made me feel like it wasn't a normal door at all, it felt like stepping through one of Portal 2's portals, but I don't really know why I feel that way.
From what I remember when I used to mess around with hammer for portal 2, you can set up big brush regions that act as seamless portals between two spots. Basically rendering the stuff through the portal just like it was geometrically there where you've placed the brush. I think they're called areaportals?
Found em trying to make a low budget antichamber map in portal 2 lol
@@DylanPackard I don't think you need brushes for the so-called *_world portals_* 👀
Speaking from 14k hours of authoring tools experience here.
(The entity is called *linked_portal_door* in case you forgot.)
@@MrGermandeutsch lol I figured, it's been since whatever two years after portal 2's launch till now that I haven't opened hammer for portal 2 hahaha
Always wished it was easier to do seamless non-euclidean stuff in gmod!
9:55
You mentioned jehova, are you a jehovas witness? I don’t mind but it jumped out at me when you said that as I used to study with them.
I genuinely did not expect to see Portal 2.
0:46 Me, seeing Cool Cat as the designer: Oh boy, we're taking one of THOSE trips aren't we?
When the biss music started i was like:
"Why do i hear boss music? WHY DO I HEAR BOSS MUSIC??"
I turn around and
Officialy my pants are brown
Librarian: I'm ready for whatever you got!
Shadow person: *And I took that personally.*
I've been looking forward to a video like this
the orange floating portion of the map really reminded me of the ending section of the game Control!
please play anemoiapolis, its this game but not in source lol. same story as well. this map looks swell though, props to the developer
Librarian, I'm not sure if you've played it before but there's a (relatively) old game called Narcosis that's based entirely underwater. It's quite cool
After Soma, that's the second scariest game I've ever seen. There's just something so spooky about being stuck underwater.
As a game dev interested in level design I really enjoy this map
6:06 How did I know you were going to say that???
The very quick descent into panic when you realize its not a reflection..
after 10 minutes of video i realized why this is portal map and not gmod map
Jeeze I actually yelled in terror at that end part. Really great stuff.
@@jamespatrick20906 what kind of bait spam is this?!
Talking about the game normally: ❌
How many times can I say "geometry" in one video: ✅
I don't smell chlorine, more bromine like Disneyland water rides
The dread I feel watching the Librarian walk up the water slides as a Lifeguard
9:25 that was just a loop and he didn't even notice lol
Heh the water splash scared me...
I feel like it’d be fun to watch you play Iron Lung
Pretty sure he already did! Maybe two weeks ago? I don't know, my perception of time is strange...
@@jocalodaco Turns out he did like 2 months ago, I didn't know but now I have something to watch
I was wondering if you've ever played NaissanceE. If you're into impossible, seemingly infinite architecture and incredibly mysterious worlds, that's a game you should definitely try out.
orange lighting = sodium vapor lamps
26:25 I love that~.
I think what's going on here.. and may already be described about in previous comments.. is that.. some sort of SCP-Like entity has taken over the Community Pool building.. created a dimensional pocket and designed the dimensional layout on the pool rooms inside the pool building.
amazing map
"Y'know a sideways pool of water..."
no... no i don't cause that's not a thing...
This map is pure kino.
You should play the game: Anemoiapolis