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This is the darkest and most creative read of the theme I've come across in the jam. Here the high score chase isn't fun, it's survival. In a jam about preserving games, turning the scoreboard into something dehumanising is a smart move.

The line on the corridor screen does a lot of work: "In REGROUND, records determine a participant's worth. Each new result replaces the previous one." Each new record erases the last one. That's lost media applied to people, and it's a great, frightening metaphor.

The environment is excellent too. Narrow concrete corridor, hanging amber traffic light, red carpet, and a phosphor green monitor reading PERFORMANCE RECORDS / RANK SUBJECT TIME / 01. SUBJECT-00 01:09.841. That monitor showing the previous subject's record is a brilliant detail. And the crawling mechanic being deliberately uncomfortable fits the whole premise.

Three practical notes. It's dark, not as dark as some entries but enough that I struggled to read the corridor geometry. The drag rhythm is hard to find, I did a lot of drag cycles without being sure I was making progress, so a visual momentum indicator would help you feel it working. And the window is wider than the screen, so the green instruction line at the bottom is clipped at both ends. The narrated intro also runs long before you get control.

Concept and atmosphere well above average. This is the kind of jam game that sticks in your head.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed review. I’m really glad the core idea and atmosphere came across the way I intended, especially the concept behind the records and the environment.

Your feedback about the darkness, the crawling feedback, the UI clipping, and the intro is very helpful. Since the jam is still ongoing I can’t update the build yet, but these are definitely things I want to improve in a post-jam update.

I’m also happy to hear you spent time chasing a better record. That was exactly the kind of experience I hoped the game would create.

Thanks again for playing and for the thoughtful feedback!