Escaping the Between

The Between is an in-between layer, a digital bardo (Tibetan word which designates an intermediate state between death and rebirth) where are drifting the souls of people who got too entangled with the collective memory of the internet. Part of their memory was pixelized, externalized and shared by millions onto servers. If nothing is done, they'll sink to the very bottom of the Between, a zone of total digital oblivion, with no reincarnation possible.

You are the maintenance AI of the Between.

Your task: log into each soul, scan the connections, and cut the links that keep it tied to the technological memory. When all techno-links are gone, the soul rises and escapes the Between, and can possibly reincarnate.

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The short title \Between is a deliberate computer-style joke: in programming, the backslash "\" starts an escape sequence in a text (\n for return, \t for tab, ...), so putting it before "Between" visually means "escape the Between".

Technically, in code the backslash usually applies to one character, not a whole word. Incidentally, \b is the escape code for backspace, perfect for the idea of "going back" of the game :)

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Game created for the Octobre Numérique 2025 Game Jam in Arles.