If Amnesia: The Dark Descent really was Amnesia: The Dark Ascent, it would be White Knuckle

Many are the horror games that involve you falling. After all, that’s where much of the wickedness in the world has traditionally been, whether it’s geology, psychology, or theology. White Knuckle reverses the flow. You’re already down; by extrapolation, we must now go up.

It is possible that you are depressed because you are a manifestation of the aforementioned wickedness. It is possible that the monstrous things attempting to thwart your ascension are simply trying to prevent you from contaminating the surface world. They may be the real heroes. It doesn’t really matter, because you don’t have a choice. There is an indescribable wall of flesh rising in the tunnel behind you. To avoid being part of it, you have to climb.

“White Knuckle is a first-person speed climbing game,” the Steam page explains. “Climb through the bowels of SUB-STRUCTURE 17 using precision movement mechanics. Sharp reflexes and resource management will take you to the highest peaks beneath ten thousand meters of concrete and decay.”

The game’s Industrial Catacombs environment includes several distinct areas, including “the deep, dry storage of the silos”, “the putrid sewers of the pipes”, and “the haunted piers of the habitation”. All seem to consist primarily of dizzying climbing puzzles, with each of your character’s hands mapped to its own button or trigger, but there’s also the option of pitting rusty drills and makeshift spears against creatures that don’t. probably should not be examined closely.

If you find this attractive, there is a demo on Steam. Dark Machine game developers were thrilled with the response to the demo. “We didn’t expect this” read an article from earlier this month. “I wasn’t expecting this. It was a game that the three of us worked on during our evenings and weekends in our free time after work for fun, and we thought maybe a few people could enjoy it for thirty minutes before moving on but that’s not what happened and I’m still dealing with it all been a whirlwind, in the best way possible.”

Aww, that’s totally wholesome for a game that’s all about crawling out of a giant metal gut. The full game does not yet have a release date.