Some thoughts and feedback

[Misery]

Okay, first of all... I absolutely adore this. I'm a big fan of the Backrooms, and this captures pretty much everything about it that makes it so engaging.

Firstly I want to say that I very much appreciate the fact that this didnt go down the random bizarro route that the "lore" often does... you know, the sort that the big wiki site is filled with. All that nonsense about partypoopers or whatever... yeah. Glad this didnt go there, that was always dumb to me.

I also liked that there were some nods to Kane's series in here (certain setpieces), but without just trying to mimic everything about it. Most of this game is entirely its own thing, and I love that.

Visuals and audio are absolutely amazing. Seriously, I'm just blown away by how well done it is.

I do have two complaints about the graphics though that I wanted to mention: first, the short draw distance (or what seems to be a short draw distance). Where everything that is a bit far off (which really isnt all that far) just is dark as if there's no lights in that direction at all (though you often can actually see ceiling lights in the darkness, which is very odd). It's the main thing that stood out to me as just being not as good as everything else about the game. And secondly, the flashlight. It's too weak! I definitely think the beam should extend further than it does... it ends up just seeming kinda pointless most of the time.

The player, maybe up the walking speed just a little. Not much... I absolutely get why it's so slow. But bringing it up just a tad might keep players engaged longer.

The one other major thing that I would like to see is some sort of actual mobile entity. Now, I'm not saying we need like some monsters around every bloody corner... that's definitely not what the Backrooms should be about. No, I'm thinking of something that the player would only actually run into very rarely... you might go an entire playthrough without encountering it at all, and even if you did encounter it, that wouldnt guarantee a chase scene or an attack... maybe it would wander off (but also, maybe it wouldnt). That sort of rarity. But the player just knowing that there IS a chance of meeting something, however small, would just add to the unnerving factor that the game has, in a really good way. At least in my opinion anyway.

As for just how unnerving the game is though in its current state, gotta say... really impressed. It amazes me, really, how even seemingly minor changes can really increase just how disconcerting it is. Like, I ran into that section in the yellow zone where the ceiling is really high but the actual walls stay at their normal height and I gotta say, that part got me. It isnt exactly some huge loopy thing, it's just one small difference, but that's really all it took, and I love that. I was totally excited to explore that when I found it.

There was one odd thing I ran into a couple of times, and I dont know if its actually supposed to be like this, but in the traditional yellow floor there were a couple of spots that were just pitch black, and upon trying to go into them, it's just... an invisible wall? Like it absolutely looks like I should be able to get in there, but no. I actually wondered at first if some sort of world-gen glitch had happened, as it just seemed so off compared to absolutely everything else. That was the only thing that seemed really out of place that I found though.

Oh, and one last thing this could do with: A save function. It's long enough that it'd definitely help... wasnt able to get all the way through it myself today as I just ran out of time, so tomorrow I'll be starting from the very beginning.

Anyway I think that's enough of my rambling for now. Seriously, this is just amazing... great work. I cant wait to see where this might go next, there's so much room for all sorts of creative ideas here.