The Corridor is a game about a button in a corridor. The narrator does not want you to push the button, and will close the game when you do.
More gameplay arises from this than you might expect.
The interactive trailer can be found here
, and the game itself here.
Never read these tropes again.
- Bland-Name Product: One level involves playing a quick game of The Legally Distinct Spatial Intruders. The sound effects and player graphic are still completely obvious.
- Blatant Lies: At one point the narrator puts the button at the bottom of a deep pit and claims that if you fall from a great height you die and lose forever. Given that he clearly made that up just now, it's no surprised when you jump down and he admits he was lying.
- But Thou Must!: The Visual Novel segment eventually leads to a "choice" where both of your options are to push the button.
- Deletion as Punishment: Towards the end of the game, you come across a plug labeled "Save Data". It's not joking — if you unplug it, your save is gone and you have to start from the beginning.
- Droste Image: Towards the end, you find your way into "Corridor Industries Inc", an office where the game is seemingly being developed, with a computer that shows your own perspective on its monitor.
- Fake Longevity: In one level, the narrator postulates that you just want the game to last as long as possible, and so he makes the corridor about five times longer.
- Falling Damage: At one point the narrator puts the button at the bottom of a deep pit and claims that if you fall from a great height you die and lose forever. Given that he clearly made this up just now, it's no surprise when you jump down and nothing happens.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: After one level, the narrator tries to convince you that he's in your computer and "turns it off". He's not very convincing.
- Interface Screw: One level inverts your controls.
- Needle in a Stack of Needles: At one point the narrator puts the button in a room full of a few hundred fake buttons. After you've pressed several fake buttons he decides it's actually more painful watching you do that and tells you where the real one is.
- Obvious Rule Patch: No, you can't just change your controls to get through the Interface Screw level. If you try, every button you try to bind will just be "invalid", forcing you to use the default bindings.
- Painting the Medium:
- In one level, the narrator tries to discourage you by massively reducing the game's framerate. When that doesn't work, he tries reducing it even more.
- In one level, you unplug several plugs that apparently power the game's sound, textures, and models, as each of those things vanishes one by one.
- Permadeath: At one point the narrator puts the button at the bottom of a deep pit and claims that if you fall from a great height you die and lose forever. Given that he clearly made this up just now, it's no surprise when you jump down and don't even take damage.
- Reverse Psychology Backfire: At one point, the narrator tries telling you that he wants you to push the button, actually. After you inevitably do it anyway, he gripes that reverse psychology never really works.
- Streamer-Friendly Mode: One of the options is "content creator mode". All it does is add an intermission level about halfway through, thanking the player for sharing the game and asking the audience to consider buying the game themself even though the playthrough they're watching will contain essentially everything the game has to offer — or rather, specifically because that's the case.
- Thanking the Viewer: Reloading the game after the credits puts the player in the corridor again, but the button is replaced with a sticky note reading "Thank you. For everything."
- Unending End Card: After the credits, the game hangs on a thank-you message telling you to feel free to close the game yourself, since the creator figures you're probably sick of him always doing it.
- Unexpected Gameplay Change:
- One level involves playing The Legally Distinct Spatial Intruders. The button takes the place of the UFO, once most of the Spatial Intruders are gone.
- One level gives you a gun and tries to insist it's an iron-sights FPS now, though there's really nothing in the level to first-person-shoot at.
- One level looks normal at first, but when you near the button, it suddenly turns into a Visual Novel.
- What the Hell, Player?: In the first-person-shooter level, there's a random guy standing there aiming at some targets. If you shoot him, the narrator is appalled that you killed a guy just because he was there and you had a gun in your hand, and pushes the level's button himself.
