Tsukasa Ryogoku Clears Pool Loop After a Misstep, Calls It the Hardest Yet

SPECIALITE — Tsukasa Ryogoku, a virtual streamer with the agency Specialite, cleared the spot-the-anomaly horror game Pool Loop on Monday, finishing at roughly 1 hour 58 minutes into a stream that ran 2 hours 20 minutes. Afterward Tsukasa said it might have been the hardest game of its kind they had played.

The game’s narration told players to inspect a pool area, press a Danger button if anything was off and press Clear if it looked safe. Early on, Tsukasa swam through the first rooms, caught some of the changes at once and let others pass, and admitted to a fear of dark places when a corridor turned black. Between rooms, the talk drifted to a childhood swimming class, an anime love-comedy debate and a school story, all while Tsukasa kept checking the same details: the clock, the chairs, the ceiling and the lights.

“When I’m cornered, I can do it. I can’t show what I’ve really got unless I’m pushed to the limit.” — Tsukasa Ryogoku, after clearing the game

The stretch that stood out came at about 1 hour 39 minutes, when Tsukasa judged a room safe and was told otherwise. The difference involved the chairs, and Tsukasa insisted the chair had not been there before. Tsukasa then went through the rooms at speed, then slowed to count chairs, ceiling lights and the lines on the wall. Near 1 hour 55 minutes, Tsukasa noticed that the color on the air conditioner was different from what it had been, called it an anomaly and made it through a tense swim. The run ended after a short backrooms-style sequence.

Tsukasa said the ending credits listed the games the developer had drawn on, including the well-known Japanese exit-hunting game 8-Ban Exit, and that those had been easier. Tsukasa asked for recommendations of similar games.

Earlier in the stream, Tsukasa told a story from childhood about taking a younger brother’s complaint to a school principal after another child kept poking the brother during the group walk to kindergarten, and the child’s family came to apologize. Tsukasa later asked viewers to make a short clip of it, and to to send real stories of helping someone through a Marshmallow message form, along with fan art of an imagined 25-year-old Tsukasa. Chat answered the clear with applause.

Tsukasa said the next stream would start at 9 p.m. the following evening.