Skin Deep

The ventilation shaft has an oddly prominent role in pop culture, or at least two particular strands of it.

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On one hand, we have Bruce Willis flicking a cigarette lighter and quipping about TV dinners as he crawls through a metal duct; on the other, JC Denton and Adam Jensen running laps behind the walls of apparently impregnable blacksites. Skin Deep takes Die Hard and Deus Ex as sacred texts, and that means taking its vents very seriously indeed.

It’s not just that its spaceship levels are so comprehensively tunnelled through, but that so much thought has clearly gone into working out what those tunnels might be used for. A handy shortcut, yes, for circumventing a locked door or flanking a patrolling guard without being seen — and an escape route, too, should you get spotted by an enemy. On top of that, though, they’re a common depository for notes and items left behind for you, the appointed rescuer, by the crew (all of whom are cats, fending off marauding human space pirates, so it makes perfect sense that they'd favour such tight spaces).

Vents are where you'll find the security panels that enable you to control the ship's CCTY, and if that sounds like too technologically advanced a form of surveillance, they are also handily riddled with holes that you can press your eye up against for a quick peek. These are places to watch from, and to scheme in. They're so roundly useful, in fact, that Skin Deep has to find ways to coax you out of them.

For example, on first entering a ship, you might find their entrances locked off behind grates. Technically, each level of