The interplay of intimacy, space, perspective, and barriers form the moody horrors of Frey's The Space Between as surrealism pervades the opaque normalcy of a world turned into hell, accompanied by a descent necessary for this transformation. Protracted sequences of dialogue and walking affirm the intensity of spaces between player and game, spectator and spectacle, audience and actors, which dread the enclosing fragmentation of existential anguish and death: walls not made out of matter. The designer's score, too, sees advanced development from his 2012 "Horror Vacui" to suit the less experimental but no less artistic form Frey's horror becomes in this exceptional game. A deserving Nuovo Award winner, The Space Between enters among my favorite games of 2019 for achieving in 40 or so minutes what most games need 10x or more time (let alone that in resources for graphics, gameplay mechanics, voice acting, etc.) to replicate.