THE CORRIDOR

THE CORRIDOR is a 20-30 minute experience about the relationship between player and game. Its genre, as the developer cheerfully describes, is 'first-person-walking-down-a-corridor-game.' The sarcastic anticipatory response — 'Wait, isn't that most games?' — is acknowledged and dismissed in the same breath. Not like this. Not like this.

The key features are described with admirable directness. A corridor. The things found within said corridor. The gameplay section is similarly precise: you walk down a corridor; that's it; that's literally it; don't expect anything more than that, because there isn't. The 'probably' that follows hints that the design may be more than it appears, but the developer is committed to not promising anything specific.

The game is short by intent. 20 to 30 minutes is the entire runtime, and the experience is meant to be played in a single uninterrupted sitting. No save points, no checkpoints, no extended progression — you walk the corridor, you encounter what's in it, and you reach the end. What that experience actually is and what the game is trying to say about player-game relationships is the part the developer wants you to discover for yourself.

For players who like small, self-contained, deliberately experimental games that don't require any commitment beyond half an hour of attention, THE CORRIDOR delivers exactly the experience the marketing promises. The cheerful refusal to explain itself is part of the appeal. Whether the game is profound or absurd or both is a judgment best made after walking the corridor in person.