Disposition is an escape room game that tests whether you've got the memory recall of a goldfish

I reckon I've got quite a strong long term memory. For instance, I can recall that time I read Stoner on a backpacking trip through Italy and realising that I particularly like sad books. I can also recall the delicious taste of a Mars Delight chocolate bar. But my short term memory, whew. Yeah it's not so good. And the demo for Disposition, a liminal escape room game where you've got to remember how things are arranged in rooms, has hammered this point home.

In Disposition you play as a test subject of a mysterious, dystopian research facility. The kind where corridors are shiny and white, and the office equipment is from the 90s: often chunky, often grey. You are to ascend the floors of this facility, but to do so, you must pass a series of tests between each elevator ride upwards. And those tests involve walking into rooms and observing how objects are placed within them. Once you've left these rooms, the doors lock behind you, and you're dropped an object from within them: a projector, a red lamp, a screen. It's then up to you to enter an identically laid out room, only with some or all objects missing, and place that object where you believe it was previously (you do this with a physics-based hold-and-release throw).

Get it right and you're clear to ascend. A new room! More objects, even tougher memory recall and the ever growing paranoia of mind blanks. Get it wrong, though, and… you start from floor zero.

In my brief time with the demo, I ascended to around floor 6 by some miracle. And that was with the help of a walkie talkie, whose growing or lessening static acts as a guide to where you should position the object. It does have a limited battery life, though, so you must use it sparingly. Otherwise, I spent most of the demo diligently scanning rooms for every little object only to forget all of them the moment those doors closed. Sometimes the game's really devious and starts popping objects in really random spots, like typewriters nestled bizarrely next to doors. I do wonder if those challenges will twist more as time goes by, as the Steam page mentions that "you must detect anomalies" and that "these challenges change every floor you ascend".

There's absolutely a story here, too, as failure led me to a corridor where I saw a man with a video tape for a head. The narrator over the tannoy said that they're a longtime employee. Yeaaaah, it's creepy.

Oh, and there's a timer ticking away if you want to race against others on a leaderboard or challenge yourself. Perhaps there are more timed elements on higher floors, but this is pure speculation and I doubt I'll ever get to that point.

If you want to give the demo a go yourself, you can find it here on Steam.