I think this is an excellent liminal experience, ruined by its repeated and incompetent attempts at being a horror game.


The game features a variety of gorgeous looking environments which successfully produce a surreal, liminal atmosphere; despite how linear many of them are. The impressive design combined with the ambience and general style of each environment gives the experience a solid array of memorable places to wander though.

Much of the time however the experience is far more concerned with its own gamification. Often the player is not simply exploring a surreal environment, but is instead searching the surreal environment to complete a tedious chore; like trying to find arbitrarily scattered numbers for a door code because a note said to, or turning valves because a note said to, or finding a magical crystal because a note said to. These inane objectives do not serve to provide a compelling reason to explore the world but rather distract the player from enjoying the exploration and atmosphere by always keeping them focused on a shallow task. Repeatedly the entire objective even hinges on the player finding one specific note that has been plastered to one specific wall, and without that single discovery progression cannot occur.

The horror elements are inconsistent and at least a third take the form of very cheap artificial jumpscares like steam bursting out of a pipe or a door swinging open. There appears to be no real stealth mechanics despite the presence of at least one roaming enemy, who completely prevents the player from progressing if they happen to wander into said enemy and trigger a chase. All the while the area gradually becomes even darker, which increases the likelihood of the player accidentally wandering into the enemy when they try again; ending their progression.

The story bounces between being harmlessly forgettable to downright inane. It attempts to connect the Backrooms to another canon but fails to really involve the other canon enough to justify the association, if the association made any sense to begin with. In line with the ridiculous objectives the world is filled with ridiculous notes that make no sense in terms of their existence or often the things they are even saying. Apparently everyone that gets sucked into the Backrooms conveniently has a pen, several sheets of paper, glue and markers with them; and feels the need to write notes that are either incredibly random or extremely informative for no discernible reason. Some of the notes just outright tell the player in plain text what arbitrary thing they need to do next to progress, as if the developers couldn't be bothered to craft an intuitive gameplay sequence so they just decided to stick a note up and simply tell the player what the next fetch quest is.

I wandered around the school level for a significant amount of time, found an arbitrary note on a wall alluding to the next chore; ran around the school even more trying to figure out how to do it, only to eventually find another arbitrary note I never noticed before that actually outlines what the real chore is because apparently the other note was just lore. Then I ran around the whole school several more times looking for some magical crystal in complete darkness with zero indication of what the crystal actually even looks like besides the colour - then gave up and quit.


To me this is shallow, uninspired and tactless as a horror game with a few decent but unredeeming moments; but absolutely gorgeous and haunting as a liminal experience for what little there is to enjoy of it. Even while swallowing down the immersion breaking notes and cheap horror moments, the fundamental tedium and struggle of getting past the actual objectives to progress is unfun to the point of making me quit.

The developers put just enough effort into the gameplay side of things to stop the experience from being a true uninhibited walking simulator; but not enough effort to make that structured gameplay actually compelling.

If you're interested in finding some games that I do positively recommend they can be found on my curator page here .

Note: This game uses undisclosed AI images and the copyright version of SCP-173. There is also an annoying bug as of this review, that your graphics and mouse controls will not save. If you have to restart or load in to play the rest another day, you have to set everything again. Given you don't expect it, it can make your game lag bad on a restart, as it always has Raytracing toggled on.

Spoilers ahead:
I really wanted to like this game, like REALLY wanted to like this game. They made effective trailers for the game, that's for sure. It started out strong with a good lobby and i loved the take on Motion. Though level Fun was the most empty level I've ever seen in a game. I even checked youtube to see if things just weren't loading in. Cute Partygoer model, though.

Chapter 2 was a huge jump in quality, was pretty to look at, and had more voice acting in it. I did like the lobby of that, though was side eyeing the 173 they were using. The game became a bit frustrating after that with invisible walls everywhere, slides and pools you couldn't use, small nitpick I know, but takes a Backrooms player out of the immersion. Once I got to the Supermarket, was really disappointed to see the AI. But that said, like chapter 1, started strong and then slid in quality from there. While areas were pretty, they seem empty, and not in the liminal way. One big positive, they actually do have some effective scares that I was happy to see. I did like the music they had, but with use of AI images, I am hesitant to buy the sound track, in case that's undisclosed AI, too. I really hope they go back and fix the game and make it better. Right now, the effort just really isn't there. There is a lot more single dev backrooms games that put more heart and effort in. I hope this game can get there as well. It has potential.

Hey Yo, Vinnie, what about the other tapes? Are you scamming us?

Watch my full experience playing this game by clicking HERE

This game is everything I personally dislike about 'Backrooms' type games. Giant empty spaces, looking for notes, pass codes, and a character that moves so slowly I could overlap them in a race even if an elephant crushed my legs. If a walking simulator with nothing visually interesting to look at is what you're after, this is your game. Otherwise, steer clear. I also experienced a note that froze my game and an ending bug that didn't let me complete the first tape so I have no idea if I even cleared this game or not.

Definitely not worth $14.

https://youtu.be/D5HdLo9OSXw

Abandoned game

Of what I've played so far, I like it less then I did before the changes they've made and chapter 2, and it is overall fairly generic feeling and uninteresting, it feels like it doesn't do as much as it could with the time it has, I'm a bit disappointed because I had high hopes for this game, might give it another shot another time though and see what I think

I was excited about this game, I love these kind of games but really its so boring. Walked around in circles for an hour till my hand got tired and I got sleepy. Not to mention it's real glitchy and didn't keep the settings for lower sensitivity and camera shake. The guy runs like he's drunk and the camera shake is annoying. Should have continuous sprint for a game like this. Couldn't get the controller settings to work right. A diagram would be nice.

The trailer sets unrealistic expectations. There's no creature no stalking you down (maybe add like outlast style gameplay). The trailer makes the game seem far more enjoyable. Not only that, but the finish the game achievement is bugged so you can't even 100% the game in achievements. PLEASE, elaborate more on what content is FINISHED. Are the other tapes going to be free updates (which they should be) or paid dlc?

Overall, the game has potential, but it is not worth $13.

Wow, i cannot recommend this at all. For the current price point this is truly terrible.
Unfortunately, by default this is a extreme headache simulator. Non of the settings are saved, so every time you have to turn off all headache settings down. The mouse smoothing settings do nothing, so you have to play as a drunk idiot.
Graphics are terrible and is using filter over filter with an extreme blurry dark end result. The 'monster' or entity is nothing more than a frustration in a way too dark map. Die once? You better start over since everything gets even more blurry and dark. Why do i want to play this? The game certainly doesn't want you to play it.

If this is supposed to be scary, fun or whatever.. it doesn't hit the spot. Maybe a giveaway or 1 dollar sale would justify this.

Chapter 1 was pretty good. Very atmospheric and nicely paced. Then we had to wait over a year for chapter 2. Which is worse in pretty much every single way imaginable. Leaving a downvote until further notice.