《This Is Not For You》前瞻：在受《House of Leaves》启发的吸血鬼灯塔中绘制违背逻辑的地图

HAAAARK

This Is Not For You is, in fact, for some very specific kinds of people. It is for people who love drawing maps, and it is for people who love having their blood sucked by a non-Euclidean lighthouse. Somebody plot that on a Venn diagram for me.

Created by Mexico-based studio Interactive Dreams, it's a dimension-defying maze game in which you play Ulysses, a shipwrecked sailor who strays into a strange lighthouse that's bigger on the inside and also, utterly incoherent. Walking north could take you south. Walking out of a bedroom could take you to the bottom of the ocean. Why yes, it is inspired by Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves. Here's a trailer.

Your goal in the game is to turn the lighthouse off, which is nicely sinister – to escape you must deactivate the means by which others avoid getting stuck in the maze. You're not the only one incarcerated here. Expect "a Magician who lost his magic" and "a Diver who doesn’t remember his name". There are also letters from somebody called Aura, which you can apparently burn if you like. "If you're patient enough, the truth will find its way into your eyes," the Steam page comments. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop as regards the Homeric parallels. I wonder if Willem Dafoe is in it somewhere.

You'll probably need to draw a map, unless you have a very particular kind of spatial memory. There's a little doodlepad in the bottom right with a choice of colours and a zoom function. I'm keen to see what your map might look like, at the end of the game. I like the idea that the lighthouse's disorderly innards might force you to toy with less conventional kinds of cartography. Still, don't enjoy yourself too much. "You must also be careful with your steps, as each one will slowly drain your blood, until nothing remains," the Steam page warns.

It's out next year. It reminds me a bit of that one house game. No, not Myhouse.wad - the one where you are the house and also, are in the house. Interactive Dreams' previous projects include Your Very Last Words, Swann's Song, A Dream About Parking Lots, and Let Me Play - all of them pensive, shortform experiments with a historical or literary bent. They seem like a talented crew.