- Where we are going you won't need eyes to see.
The Voidness is a LIDAR-based first-person Science Fiction horror game by Steelkrill Studio (solo self-taught developer Ryan Portelli), the maker of Trenches and The Backrooms 1998. It was released into Early Access on Steam on April 6th, 2023.
Players take the role of 39-year old Francesca Lee, an astronomer and mission specialist and part of an expedition to study the unique planet of Tenebris, which is home to a science-defying phenomena called the Void, a region of pure light-consuming darkness. Francesca wakes up in the infirmary to find the base has been abandoned and the other crew members are missing. Finding herself stalked by a hostile shadowy presence, she must use a LIDAR scanner to navigate through the Void and reach the escape pods in the secondary base to escape Tenebris.
No relation to Scanner Sombre, the other first-person LIDAR game.
The Voidness contains examples of:
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Most objects are marked in blue by the LIDAR. Objects you can interact with are marked green. Water is shown as orange. Blood, as well as dangerous hostile entities, are marked in red.
- Downer Ending: Seems to be typical for a game by Steelkrill Studio. Francesca successfully manages to reach the escape pods and escape back to Earth, but we're shown an audio log she missed because it was behind a blocked door in Base 2. In it, the expedition leader warns all expedition members not to attempt to return to Earth, because anyone who steps foot in the Void becomes marked by the presence within it even if they're not physically contaminated, and if they try to return to Earth they'll bring the presence along with them. We're then shown a bloody door in Francesca's home, which opens to reveal the Void has now taken root on Earth through her.
- Eldritch Location: The Void is a region of space in which light doesn't function, making normal human eyesight useless. The planet Tenebris seems to partially intersect the Void, and the surface of the planet (which requires a LIDAR scanner to navigate because of it) seems to be a bizarre landscape of twisting alien roots, inexplicable wooden structures, and even a maze of steam pipes that wouldn't be out of place in Silent Hill.
- I Did What I Had to Do: The expedition leader's audio log reveals he had to kill the other surviving expedition members after he realized they were all marked by the Void and couldn't be allowed to return to Earth.
- Interface Screw: The LIDAR vision reboots every few minutes, startling you with an electric popping sound and deleting the entirety of your scanned view.
- Mooks, but no Bosses: Other than the mass of shadow tentacles that chases you in the prologue, the red humanoid weeping entities seems to be the only active enemy in the game. Even the last level is just you searching a section of the Void patrolled by one of the entities for 4 power cannisters required for the escape pod.
- New Work, Recycled Graphics: The Voidness is clearly built upon the same framework as Trenches and The Backrooms 1998, with the same menus, inventory system, same save system from Backrooms 1998, etc. A close examination of some of the objects encountered in the Void show them to be recycled props from previous games, such as mannequins and baby statues, though because of the unique LIDAR interface this isn't obvious unless you look really closely.
- Shout-Out: The game contains shout outs to horror game youtuber IGP as well as to the spooky story channels "Depths of Despair" and "King Frostmare".
- Sole Survivor: Francesca ends up being the sole survivor of the Tenebris expedition. Then it turns out she unknowing is carrying the Void with her.
- Taken for Granite: The Void seems to be home to some sort of contamination that slowly turns organic matter into some sort of dirt-like substance that tends to form into root-like tendrils. Early on Francesca finds a statue-like figure which was apparently another expedition member who got contaminated and had his body slowly calcify. Fortunately Francesca's hazmat suit seems to protect her from the contamination ( but not from the non-corporeal presence that controls the Void).
