Pre-Alpha Feedback Needed: Backrooms-Inspired Liminal Game

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#1

Hey everyone,

I’m working on a game strongly influenced by the surreal, liminal atmosphere of the Backrooms. It’s still in a very early pre-alpha stage, so there isn’t a complete gameplay loop yet. No entities, no tools, no progression. I’m just hoping for feedback on the core experience thus far:

  • How does the atmosphere feel?

  • Does the game run smoothly for you?

  • Do you have any thoughts regarding movement, level design, lighting, or ambiance?

I just added a new map so that I can test the feel of the game. It’s quite small, but it does a good job of creating atmosphere; I’d love to hear what you think of it.

This is a great opportunity to test the raw gameplay before implementing new mechanics and systems. I’d appreciate some constructive feedback from anyone who tries it out; don’t hesitate to comment here. Thanks.

One last thing: this game is fully developed by myself as a solo dev, so expect some rough edges around the corners and some bugs and some free assets for visuals like animations and builds and so on.

For the controls:

  • G – Turns radio on/off.

  • X/C – Decreases/increases radio signal.

  • F – Zoom in. (automatically zooms out on input stop.)

  • V – Switch perspective. (First Person, Third-person, etc.)

  • Shift – Sprints.

  • Ctrl – Crouches.

You can try the game out here; I’ll make it private in a couple of days.

2 Likes
#2

Definitely try to include some form of loading screen or fading in or out, its a personal thing of mine and it makes any game feel a lot more polished.

I think when Zooming In, the cameras sensitivity should decrease so its not as fast when actually moving your camera, while zoomed in.

Definitely tweak the rate of change of the zoom when sprinting, and add a subtle sfx for crouching, just for feedback.

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I’d also tweak the transparency of the volumetric lights, they feel too strong.

An actual visual indicator for the radio would be nice, I didn’t notice whether it was on or off until I noticed the chat disappearing, which is neat, but I do think you shouldn’t remove it entirely, I think it’d be better if you made the text/chat change font depending if someone was using a radio.

I’d also revisit how you handle the perspective switching, the sudden black and then sudden, unblack is kinda jarring, a simple fade in or just a tween to the new camera perspective might work better.

Its pretty good so far, in terms of atmosphere and performance.

1 Like
#3

I really appreciate your feedback. I completely understand why some of the stuff needs to be tweaked, and I am already working on it. Some of the stuff is just placeholders and W-I-P systems, and yes, I should have made it much clearer for better feedback.

I will add everything you mentioned to my notes, and hopefully, I will either improve them or completely change how they work.

One last time, thanks a lot; I really appreciate it.

1 Like
#4

I’d love to see how far you go with this!

#5

A couple things I noticed:

  • If you run straight into a bookshelf, the game will spam the footstep sound even though you’re not moving.
  • I think it would be good to make it a bit more clear that the range and battery meters are tied to the radio (like just adding a “radio” heading). At first I thought the battery was tied to the flashlight and was confused why it was going down when I didn’t have it equipped. Also, these meters overlap with the player list. If you’re making a singleplayer game, I think you should disable the player list; otherwise move the radio meters to a different place.

The build looks good so far. I don’t have a lot else to say at the moment because (I’m pretty sure) there’s only one level, but I’m interested to see where you take the game when you start adding more. Speaking of which, when you start to add the gameplay loop, are you thinking of focusing on entities to challenge the player or just relying on the properties of the space itself to create horror?

#6

Thanks, I may create future topics like devlogs about the game if some more people are interested. I also have my portfolio server on Discord; you can join it if you want; it’s in my bio. It has some personal projects and some system showcases from this exact game I’m working on.

Thanks for noticing that; it’s a part of two issues: collisions not being set up for the shelves and a bug in the footstep system, which I’ll look into. The footstep system relies heavily on animation markers for the footsteps, so it just spamming a lot of footsteps is probably tied to a bug in my animation script. I’ll add it to my notes.

Yeah, you’re 100% correct on that. I should’ve honestly made it much clearer in the post.

I agree, but every mechanic and system that’s currently built is just a placeholder and isn’t permanent. The game is in its pre-alpha state, so it’s all about quantity over quality, and those are the rough edges I’ve specified in the post.

Everything is set to change, even the maps; they won’t be tied to the backrooms directly, just concept maps inspired by the Backrooms.

Also, the game will have some variety when it comes to modes, but I’m honestly debating whether I should keep it multiplayer only or add single player and other modes too.

Honestly, I’m leaning more into a mix of everything: psychological horror, liminal horror, and entities. Basically a world not designed for humans. I’m not the type of developer who just wants to make another over-saturated game that’s a copy and paste; I want it to have its own unique style, which won’t come in overnight and will need a lot of experimenting.

I’m passionate, and I’ve been for a long time now. So, the game would most certainly evolve along with the current story and roadmap.

1 Like
#7

Bumping the thread to squeeze out the last bit of feedback I can get from here before making the game private. :face_in_clouds:

#8

The build looks great. Only problems I have with it is how glossy and wet some things look, and the volumetric lights look a bit off. In addition to adjusting the transparency, maybe try widening the volumetric lights so that they cover the whole light part.

The movement and animations are nice, especially the head bobbing. So far pretty promising!

1 Like
#9

Thanks so much for taking the time to give feedback!

I kind of agree with you there. I rushed the test map and struggled to find the right textures/materials for the majority of the map itself.

Yeah, I get that, honestly. Looking back on it, it does look a bit extra, visually intrusive, and overwhelming. I’ll definitely pay more attention to the lighting in future maps.

Yeah, I actually did that, but it honestly looked bad when looking from a non-horizontal point of view, so I honestly just kept it that way. I’ll look into better ways of making it better in both directions.

I really appreciate that.

Regarding the animations, I don’t want to take credit for someone else’s work. They’re from a free asset collection I found on DevForum. Here’s the link for it.

Regarding the other mechanics, they took some time to develop and fine-tune for me to get to where they are now, and I genuinely appreciate your feedback.