A downloadable game for Windows

Buy Now$5.99 USD or more





The Space Between by Christoph Frey is a surreal short narrative experience in three acts about the walls we build for us.



The architect Martin Melanson, commissioned to build a theater, meets a woman named Clara, outside of his apartment complex at night. Attracted to each other, they visit the theater's building site.
While they explore the unfinished stage, surrounded by scaffolds and lost in thoughts, reality slowly fades, where the curtain opens and a dark play about closeness and separation begins.


The game's drawn-out, static nature, embedded in blurred PS1 visuals, supports its surreal plot and dialogues to create a dreamlike 40 - 50 minute experience, that should be played in one sitting.



Controls:
W,A,S,D to move
Mouse to look
E to interact



"Overall, these stylistic choices come together in a thoroughly cohesive aesthetic whole, amplifying cinematic qualities similar to those of an Ingmar Bergman or Nicolas Winding Refn film." RE:BIND

"The Space Between is deliriously uneasy in its final moments, thanks, in large part, to a skin-crawlingly stellar score." Wireframe

"The Space Between's Martin is afraid of intimacy, which is a lot like being terrified of death. Fearing intimacy is almost always about fearing loss." Wired


There is an excellent three part dissection of The Space Betwee written by @cathroon for RE:BIND, which I highly recommend you to read AFTER playing it.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3


If you liked the game and want to support me, you can do it on my Patreon.

Purchase

Buy Now$5.99 USD or more

In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $5.99 USD. You will get access to the following files:

THE SPACE BETWEEN 1.2.2.zip 300 MB
Extended Soundtrack and Wallpapers.zip 386 MB
if you pay $7.99 USD or more

Development log

Comments

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Viewing most recent comments 1 to 40 of 48 · Next page · Last page

Fair warning, I've been letting people know that a user keeps making new accounts and copying other peoples game pages while uploading viruses to them.  https://tanzago.itch.io/the-space-between

Thank you! I've reported this account!

(1 edit)

The best game I have played on this site. I know it’s not for everyone, but to me it’s absolutely perfect. It explores so many themes in a way that is uncommon in most media. I love this game so much. I recommend it to anyone who likes surreal philosophical, and creepy experiences.

 

Thank you! <3

Is there any way to view the analysis from cathroon? The site doesn't seem to load.

(-6)

Spanish translation sucks

Show post...

great story and very poem game . !!

HBD 2 U :) ... Thanks for the giveaway, looking forward to play "The space between us". A friend of mine told me it's a great game

(+1)

Happy Birthday! And thank you for this giveaway!

Happy Birthday Christoph, and thanks.

So... I'm trying this game out, but I'm not getting any audio whatsoever when I play it. This has never really happened before on my computer (and I've played some weird shit). I'm not sure what to do... has anyone else reported similar problems?

I played through this twice and I really liked it. Things like the confusing nature of who's speaking, the lengthy pauses between lines, and the absolutely sluggish pace at which you walk which I thought were failings I realized were very clearly intentional on my second playthrough. Very good. I loved it.

Hey man! Will you make a MacOS version?

(+2)(-8)

I will say this. I hated this game until the last 3 seconds. The dialogue was pretentious, poorly written. Characters were uninteresting. The walking speed served no purpose. The story was aimless. But then the last 3 seconds happened, and now I'm so convinced that I need to give it another shot. Very jarring, surreal ending. I do like the visual style though! Overall, paratopic is just plain better, but this has a nice style to it.

OK, someone wanna explain this one to me? Sorry I think I get the general vibe, but this one's a little esoteric for me and I'd love it if someone just broke it down for me "Barney Style".

(+2)

I've played this through twice now and it remains such an eerie and truly disturbing experience. It's a filmic exploration of gaming as a visual medium, one that demands attention rather than seeking to entertain. Some of the images will stay with me for a long time. I'd encourage anyone with a spare 50 minutes of their time to give this game a go, if you're looking for something provocative, poignant, and surreal. Just don't expect any answers. 

i am running on windows 10 and can't get the game to run in full screen. i have tried both things listed in the solution listed above but it still doesn't work. are you able to help me figure this out?

I try to fix it in the next update I'm about to release soon.

thank you! i wouldn't ask if i wasn't extremely interested in playing this game ahah. i love the music in the trailer v much. it reminds me of requiem for a dream. 

(+1)

Pretty awesome if you're a big fan of Sabato's The Tunnel

Liked it. Nice aesthetic and music. The dialogue is a bit confusing sometimes because there's no way to know who's talking (besides context).

Amazing, I loved the vibes this game has and the soundtrack is also great! By pure coincidence ( one name matching someone I know ) I connected to this game a lot more than I probably should have. This game creeped me out a bit but also made me feel...... understood in a way, if that makes sense.

Thank you for this experience.

I love it. Nice aesthetic, nice sound design, nice story that understand games are space. 10/10 ! A little piece of art. 

Me encanto el juego con una contrucción bastante singular, creo que otros deberian de darse la oportunidad de jugarlo para experimentarlo aun que no necesariamente les pueda gustar, pero minimo se les quedara en la cabeza las imagenes que evoca.

Quizas lo mejor seria jugar el juego pero grabe mi gameplay y le hice un muy improvisado doblaje al español en mi gameplay que pueden ver a continuación.

(+1)

Feels like an european arthouse film, and as someone that studied architecture the enviroments are beautiful and bold.


It  evoques an eerie almost unhuman feeling throughout, that is unique to it.

(4 edits) (+3)

Fantastic audio and music, really well done on these fronts.

There were a few times where the plodding pace felt forced, but after some initial frustration I came to appreciate especially the pauses between lines of dialogue. As another user mentioned (and was exactly how my experience went), thoughts filled the space between the phrases and the game then expanded itself into other places in my mind.

The English seems a bit awkward in places in a way that is reminiscent of difficulties in translation rather than deliberate choices, which is unfortunate, since there is an authenticity and rawness to what is being said, and this can detract from that a bit. Cleaning that up would probably improve the experience. But,  it's not really a problem across too much of the script and the message gets across, with no broken phrases, so it's still a job well done.

Plenty of genuinely interesting ideas and brilliant imagery/vignettes that will stick with me in here. Great work and thanks for making something with such singular purpose.

(2 edits) (+1)

Quite an intriguing experience. Sound design is awesome and aesthetic is powerful even though it comes fron an era I normally totally abhor. Dialogues are probably a bit too slow for me, and it's sometimes hard to know who talks or what to do, but the scenes are quite memorable. A bit sad not to have understood the profound meaning of the ending, though.

To a certain extend, it seems in my mind to fill "the space between" two of my favorite songs: Supertramp's If Everyone Was Listening and Alan Parsons Project's The Cask of Amontillado

(+10)(-6)

Sooooo slooow.

Seriously, try reading the dialog out loud. In order for it to tick over,

Yooooouuuuuu haaaaaaaveeee toooooooo reeeeaaaaaad iiiiit liiiiiiike thiiiiiiiis.

I ended up giving up on it before I made any meaningful game decision. I get you're going for an aesthetic choice with the slow dialog, but damn. 

Deleted 2 years ago
(+2)

Are there checkpoints? My ame has crashed twice in the middle of Act 1 and everytime it does I have to start from the prolouge 

(+5)

Picked this up because it was recommended in a video by RagnarRox on YouTube.

(+3)(-1)

Hey, I just wanted to ask if this game has any jumpscares at all or if it's just psychological stuff. I own the game, and I'm considering playing, but I can't handle many jumpscares(other than stuff like night of the consumers)

(+5)

No jumpscares, just jump cuts.

(+2)

ooh, I love myself some thirty flights-type stuff

(+17)(-2)

i really like this game.

i'm gay, and growing up i've always had trouble connecting to others. i was always holed up inside, drawing or writing instead of talking to other kids, and sometimes, i still find it really difficult to feel like im really connecting to other people in my life. occasionally, i find myself wondering where i would be if not for all of the support i've had from my loved ones over the years. playing this game showed me exactly where i would be. this story is strange, disturbing, uncomfortable, and even brought me to tears. regardless of whether you intentionally alluded to the gay experience at all, your work was so powerful that it left me shaken and reflective for hours after i had finished.

thank you!

Powerful stuff!

(+3)

I can't stop thinking about The Space Between. A bold, distant and yet intimate contemplation piece. A truly unique audio visual experience.

Turn off all distractions and give yourself an hour to experience this.

(+1)

This was a profoundly upsetting and interesting experience. I loved it.

(+1)

I loved this game, genuinely haunting and moving, manages to be more than the sum of its parts - one of my favourite game soundtracks.

(+3)

This game nails the hollow feeling got from being unable to comfortably experience emotional connection - both in the soundtrack,pacing and overall visual presentation.Currently vibing to the austere Main Menu theme :)

(+2)

A beautiful and surprisingly powerful game.  The pacing of the dialogue is really interesting, because it forces the player to fill the space between words with their own thoughts.  I found that much of the game was happening in my head, rather than on-screen.  There's a surprising amount to unpack with all of the symbolism and motifs!

The soundtrack is beautiful, and I like the way you switched between different scenes/points in time; it felt 'edited' in the same way art-house cinema is.  

(+2)

This was an incredible experience I will not soon forget.

A brilliantly told story that left me with chills at so many points. I loved the writing, loved your take on perspective, intimacy and overall human connection.

At first I thought the pace was a bit slow, but by the end of it I appreciated every decision you made. I first wanted to be able to skip dialogue after reading it, but after it sunk in I realized how much it elevated every line, gave it so much more weight. I could be biased because it had so many themes that strongly resonate with me personally, but regardless, it struck true.

Love the way you tell a story. Great use of motifs, visual and otherwise. I'll be looking into more of your stuff Chris. Color me impressed.

Also commenting that a mac version would be awesome, hoping to stream this game at some point!

(+2)(-1)

No mac version  ? ( T _ T)

I follow you on SoundCloud 2.

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