Iron Lung
by Ceili Limoges
Basic Game information
Iron lung is a first-person single player phycological horror videogame released on March 9th, 2022. It was developed and published by David Szymanski who is an American game developer known for his other titles, Dusk and Gloomwood. Iron lung is currently available to play on steam and Nintendo switch.1
Game plot
Iron Lung takes place in the year 378 eic (epoch of interplanetary colonization), a post-apocalyptic dystopia after the events of “The Quiet Rapture,” where all known stars and inhabitable planets disappeared, leaving behind only baren moons and those who were in space during the event. One of these moons, moon AT-5, was recently discovered to have an unexplored trench within an ocean made entirely of human blood. You play as a nameless convict, given the task of capturing certain points of interest within this sea of blood in exchange for your freedom. You are welded shut within SM-13 nicknamed the Iron Lung, a makeshift submarine that was not built to withstand the depth of the trench you will be exploring. The front window of SM-13 is shut at the beginning of your descent, so the only means of navigation is through your coordinates, map, proximity indicator and the front facing camera which you will also use to capture the required points of interest. Throughout the expedition, the player has access to a computerized local database at the back of the submarine where they can gain knowledge about various subjects relating to the world, they are currently in.
points of interest
Within iron lung there are 10 points of interest the C.O.I want you to capture with the SM-8's front facing camera before you can resurface and gain your freedom. these 10 points can be located using the coordinates on the given map (see figure 2). The 10 points can be captured in any order the player chooses, this is useful since the player will only be able to capture 9 photos per playthrough before the game if forced to end, the loose photo order allows the player to see the final photo in their next playthrough as long as they hadn't already captured 9 points of interest. Though there are only 10 points of interest the C.O.I wants, there are additional secrets to be found throughout the game, like the shredded remains of SM-13.
Key terms from the computerized local database
C.O.I: C.O.I stands for the consolidation of iron and is a colony consisting of three space stations and two spacecrafts with a human population of 257 during the events of the game. They use the eic (epoch of interplanetary colonization) calendar system which was based on the rotation of the earth. C.O.I was formed on the principle of collectivism after the quite rapture and is known for its conviction realization program, a program focused on using convict labor for the general good of the people for the purpose of reintroduction into society. One of these conviction realization tasks is the exploration of blood oceans on the two blood ocean moons under the C.O.I’s control. The playable character is most likely under the control of C.O.I and is an unwilling participant of conviction realization.
Eden: Eden is the largest remaining station after the quite rapture with a human population of 468 during the events of the game. They use the imc (interstellar Martian Calendar) calendar system which was based on the rotation of Mars. Eden was once the main station of the Mars colonies, and the residents onboard continue to refer to themselves as Martians. The C.O.I consider Eden an enemy and there is mention of past wars between the two of them, like the 9-day battle on the C.O.I owned filament station which resulted in the station becoming unusable. Many Eden members were captured as prisoners by C.O.I during this battle and later used in conviction realization, it is very likely the player character was once a member of Eden captured during this 9-day battle.
The SM-13: SM-13, also nicknamed the iron lung, is one of 4 burner submarines used by C.O.I for “conviction realization.” It is the submarine the main controllable player resides in and where the entirety of the game takes place. SM-13 is described in the game as a poorly built rusty submarine constructed out of scrap metal. At the beginning of the game, we find a handwritten note saying SM-13 was designed to be single use and that anyone who is unlucky enough to be welded shut inside its walls is being sent to an execution, not an expedition.
The SM-8: SM-8 is a proper submarine built for exploring blood oceans. Unlike the SM-13, the SM-8 was built to withstand multiple trips and those on it are expected to come back alive. Typing SM-8 into the local database, it is revealed the SM-8 is no longer in commission and had supposedly been torn apart into multiple pieces while exploring the ocean of AT-5.
Blood ocean moons: Though there are 4 moons that contain blood oceans in iron lung, only two blood ocean moons are named in the game, moon AT-5 and moon Z-8 which are both under the control of C.O.I. Moon AT-5 is where the entirety of the game takes place.
The use of simple graphics and game mechanics in iron lung
I first became aware of Iron lung during a twitch live stream in 2022, the streamer known as CdawgVA was playing the game late at night and seems somewhat frightened by it, despite that the Chat attached to the stream had rather negative comments about the games fright factor.2 This is a common argument I have seen online around iron lung; many cannot agree whether it's a horrifyingly well-done masterpiece or just another cheap overhyped indie game. One post on Reddit's r/HorrorGaming argued “In Iron Lung, humanity randomly dies, you play as this random person who's randomly a convict, thrown into this moon which is randomly full of blood, and are forced to take pictures of random bones and buildings which don't mean anything because nothing is explained in this mess.”3 Though many replied to this post disagreeing with the original posters take on iron lung, we cannot ignore that many feel Iron Lung is boring, lacking in content and over simplified, especially when it comes to its low resolution graphics. However, I believe Iron Lung’s extreme simplicity in game mechanics and game graphics is what gives it its strength in leaving the player in complete dark and creating suspense.
The entirety of Iron lung takes place within the SM-13, a submarine nicknamed the Iron lung, which shares a name with the historical medical machine which also allows people to survive in extreme conditions (Fouché, 2024). The player doesn't get to see the outside colonies like C.O.I or get briefed on why the controllable character is a prisoner; we are only left to infer the state of the world based on what's in SM-13's database. The player has as much knowledge on the world of post Quiet Rapture Iron Lung as the nameless main character has on what's outside his submarine. According to Atkinson and Parsayi “In a suspense game, the threat is often invisible or just outside the field of view, ensuring that the player is always vigilant (2019).” Iron lung displays this idea as a suspense game perfectly; within the submarine the player is unable to see their outside surroundings unless they take a picture using the submarine's front facing camera. The processing time between when the photo is taken and when the photo appears on screen also adds an extra sense of suspense, no matter what you do, you can never see the outside world in real time within Iron lung. Along with the simple story, the gameplay is just as simple. When a creator has limited resources, they must substitute the lack of quantity with quality (Nealen, Saltsman, Boxerman, 2011). All the player can do within the submarine is view the map, take pictures, control the submarines angle and X, Y position to move around and access the submarines database. During the game, the submarine will slowly begin to leak or catch fire, there is no way to repair these leaks or put out these fires, the lack of quantity in this game design is not a flaw, the dread and helplessness the player feels at this point adds an extra layer of quality, the developer did not substitute quantity for quality, but the removal of quantity is what adds quality to this game and what makes it work.
The last feature of iron long that adds to this suspense its soundtrack. The iron lung soundtrack is eerie and has a distorted underwater feel to it; you can hear the creaks of the submarine and the sound of swooshing outside, which mixes well with the lack of visual understanding we have about what is happening outside. According to Pluto “Horror games often inspire fear from exploiting the player’s unknowingness of their surroundings. Sometimes the ‘enemy’ is audible but unseen” (2022). During the events of Iron lung, the large fish that stalks the submarine is only visually seen twice though the photos before the climax at the end of the game, but we can hear hints of it through swooshes in the soundtrack, which is more chilling then just seeing the fish.
YouTube link
SUPERDIVORCE "Iron Lung [PC] FULL GAME SUPERPLAY - NO COMMENTARY - NO AD BREAKS!" March 10 202. YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMNMQ6_Isao&t=3587s
reference list & footnotes
- David Szymanski. iron lung, Steam. 9 Mar, 2022 . https://store.steampowered.com/app/1846170/Iron_Lung/?curator_clanid=34055240
- CDawgVA “Iron Lung is actually terrifying” may 13, 2022. YouTube. https://youtu.be/F6Ozu3cdyIo?si=HvENq8Tn4sz4WVMY
- “Iron Lung is one of the lamest horror games ever created.” Reddit, r/HorrorGaming https://www.reddit.com/r/HorrorGaming/comments/vuxdmg/iron_lung_is_one_of_the_lamest_horror_games_ever/
Fouché, M. 2024. Player Experience of Minimalist Video Game Design: Case Study of Indie Horror Iron Lung. Games and Culture, 0(0).
Boll, Pluto, 2022. Waiting for Something to Happen? Creating Fear and Unease Through Video Game Music and Sound Design" (2022). Theses & ETDs. 6199.
Atkinson, Paul & Parsayi, Farzad. 2019. Living in the Present: Rethinking the Paradox of Suspense through Videogames. Monash University
Andy Nealen, Adam Saltsman, and Eddy Boxerman. 2011. Towards minimalist game design. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 38–45.
AI disclosure
The use of Artificial Intelligence was not used in the making of this project.