BACK*SPACE

"Describe BACK*SPACE for me will you?" Sure. It's Backrooms on steroids. Also. One of. If not the best, Backrooms game out right now. A whole slew of camera settings. (something I wish more devs would offer.) Not sure if there's controller support? But I am using DualSense/wired with no issues. Everything is mapped perfectly. Endless stamina. Just press L2 and off you run. No thumb cramping. Anyway... 10/10 Must buy. Excellent job dev.

BACKSPACE is a deliberately quiet take on the liminal-space exploration genre, choosing atmosphere, isolation, and curiosity over monsters or conventional horror mechanics. Developed and published by Mostly Farmless Games, it places the player inside a collection of strangely familiar environments where empty corridors, abandoned rooms, forgotten commercial spaces, pools, and surreal architecture create the feeling of wandering through places that should make sense but somehow do not. Rather than explaining exactly where the player is or providing an elaborate narrative, the game allows uncertainty to become part of the experience. Its central question is not simply whether you can escape, but whether you actually want to leave. The absence of enemies is one of its most important characteristics. Nothing actively hunts the player, and there are no monsters waiting to trigger predictable chase sequences. The uneasiness instead comes from emptiness and anticipation. Walking through a poorly illuminated hallway can still feel threatening because the player does not know what lies beyond it, even when the game has already established that combat and hostile entities are not its focus. This produces a more psychological kind of tension, where imagination does much of the work. At the same time, some areas can feel oddly peaceful, making the experience fluctuate between discomfort and relaxation. Exploration is spread across 16 main levels, divided between spaces resembling forgotten offices, malls, rooms, and other deteriorating interiors and environments centered around tranquil but uncanny poolrooms. The different themes prevent the game from becoming an endless repetition of identical Backrooms-style corridors. Some locations are deliberately maze-like, while others provide a more understandable route through their environments. After the introductory sequence, the player reaches a central home hub that connects these areas. Because the levels can be approached without following a rigid linear sequence, players are given considerable freedom to decide where they want to wander next. VHS tapes provide the primary collectible objective. Each major level contains a tape hidden somewhere within it, and its location can vary between visits. Decoy objects and environmental audio cues add uncertainty to the search, encouraging players to pay attention instead of simply running directly toward an obvious objective marker. Discovered tapes appear back at the home hub, gradually filling the collection. Finding all of them has a larger purpose connected to the Hub Exit, but collecting tapes is otherwise not forced upon the player. Someone interested primarily in atmospheric wandering can therefore explore without constantly worrying about completion. This freedom works particularly well because BACKSPACE is fundamentally a walking simulator rather than an action game. Much of the enjoyment comes from discovering unusual rooms, becoming temporarily lost, following sounds, searching dark corners with the flashlight, and wondering whether another passage leads toward an exit or simply deeper into the environment. Players looking for complex puzzles, combat, elaborate character progression, or frequent scripted events may consequently find the experience too passive. For its intended audience, however, the restraint is arguably one of its strengths. The game understands that a mysterious location does not necessarily require a creature chasing the player to remain interesting. The visual presentation reinforces this philosophy through a strong analog VHS aesthetic. Fortunately, several of these effects can be adjusted or disabled, allowing players to create a cleaner image if the distortion becomes distracting. Head bobbing, interaction effects, footsteps, look sensitivity, and audio can also be adjusted. These options are particularly useful for a first-person game where prolonged wandering and camera movement could otherwise become uncomfortable. Some environments contain flickering fluorescent lighting, so photosensitive players should still exercise caution. Audio takes an equally minimalist direction. The lack of a traditional musical soundtrack leaves environmental sounds and silence responsible for establishing the mood. This can make seemingly ordinary rooms surprisingly effective because there is no dramatic music announcing when the player should feel afraid. Silence creates room for interpretation, while occasional sounds can encourage exploration or make an otherwise empty location feel less predictable. Players can also provide their own music in the background, but experiencing the environments without a soundtrack arguably preserves the intended loneliness more effectively. The game includes manual saving with three save slots, recording information such as current progress and collected tapes. Reloading while lost can return the player to the beginning of the current level, which is useful considering the intentionally confusing layouts. Keyboard and mouse controls are available alongside Xbox controller support. Steam achievements, Steam Cloud, and Family Sharing further complement what is otherwise a straightforward single-player experience. Steam Deck compatibility deserves some caution. The Steam store currently does not present BACKSPACE with an official Steam Deck Verified or Playable rating, and its listed platform support is Windows. The game does have full controller support, which is favorable for handheld controls, but that should not be confused with official Deck verification. Its use of Unreal Engine 5 and Lumen also makes performance compatibility more uncertain than its simple walking-simulator gameplay might suggest. Players specifically purchasing it for Steam Deck should therefore treat it as an unsupported or unverified experience rather than assuming flawless handheld performance. Replayability comes primarily from exploration rather than fundamentally changing content. VHS tapes can appear in different locations on subsequent playthroughs, potentially directing players into rooms they previously overlooked. A player determined to investigate every passage can spend considerably more time with the game than someone who focuses on reaching exits and completing the tape objective. Still, once the environments become familiar, some of their initial mystery inevitably diminishes. BACKSPACE is consequently better suited to players who enjoy absorbing environmental details than those seeking endlessly renewable gameplay systems. BACKSPACE succeeds because it commits to its identity instead of turning into another monster-driven Backrooms game. Its combination of nonlinear exploration, 16 distinctive environments, randomized VHS locations, customizable visual effects, eerie silence, and the contrast between unsettling interiors and strangely inviting pools creates a compelling form of environmental storytelling without relying heavily on exposition. Mostly Farmless Games has built an experience where curiosity itself becomes the main mechanic. It will undoubtedly feel too uneventful for players seeking action or conventional horror, but enthusiasts of liminal spaces should find considerable appeal in simply wandering through its impossible architecture. Rating: 8/10

Wow. This could be the best "serious" Backrooms game out there. It might even beat out Dreamcore (the closest game to it and one of my favorites) so I'll be comparing them here. I've spent 6 hrs so far and only completed 3 of the 16 levels. This game is huge, with labyrinths that truly feel endless. And let me just say that having randomly-spawning VHS tapes to find in each level is genius, because you might find the exit before finding the tape... Do you choose to go back and search through the endless labyrinth to find it and risk forgetting how to make it back to the exit? It's truly rewarding when you do, because you have a "home base" where you can see your tapes accumulating and the environment changing. It's so well done - I wish other Backrooms games would do something like this. The scope and scale is truly enormous, I've been blown away. Yes, the game is even bigger than Dreamcore, which I didn't think it was possible. At the same time, the environments are cohesive and weirdly enough, they feel like they're pulled straight out of my childhood. I was shocked at multiple points in these first 3 levels in a way no other Backrooms game has done. Eerie chills, goosebumps - these spaces are real, I'm telling you! There are truly unique and special environments here that haven't been done in Backrooms games before. And on top of that, every level so far has dripped with liminality. Knowing just what it takes to develop these kinds of spaces, I found myself wondering how the devs did it, with nooks and crannies all over the place, endless doors and directions to choose from.. Nothing overdone, no silly and immersion-breaking gimmicks, very little no-clipping. It feels natural and real. There is also cohesion between levels - it was wild circling back over a unique location in floor #1, a room covered in windows with a spooky green light, and then in a later floor, floor #12 (which I randomly chose as my 2nd floor), discovering the other side of those windows, being able to peer back on where I once was. Little things like this make such a difference. Elaborating further, everything feels "off" without bombarding you with stupid Vaporwave Greek statues and big smiley beach balls and blood-covered demons that so many other "Backrooms" type games try to go for. These spaces are unnerving because of the spaces themselves, and also because you're pretty much lost in the endless labyrinth. It seriously competes with Dreamcore with this element and also isn't procedurally generated. For comparison, I would say this game gets to about 95% of the sheer endlessness and labyrinthine aspects of Dreamcore - despite being larger, you eventually learn your way around because you are kinda forced to learn your way around to find these tapes, with lots of circling back to check everything (the tape spawns are randomized, who knows where they might be). In Dreamcore, you don't do this on every level, some levels just go on for what feels like forever in one direction, and you never stumble back to the beginning ever again. (There are pros and cons to both design styles). There's also a handful of cool features like being able to focus your flashlight on things in the distance and to almost go prone to squeeze through some really low/tight holes. Some corridors "glitch" out and become an endless loop, and sometimes it feels like you "glitch" your way across the map, kind of like a seamless teleport. After all the work you do, the tapes that you collect seem to unlock features at the home base, which is a nice touch and drives you forward... I've really been loving it so far and I can tell I'll probably put 4x the time into this game vs. Dreamcore, yet this game is 1/3rd the price. Truly a steal.

My one main problem with exploration based backrooms games is usually no clear objective its just wander around and try to find an exit. I think these types of games need something else for me to be slightly more engaged in what's going on and this game does that well by having me look for the tapes. Do we get to watch them after we collect them all? That is yet to be seen but I am enjoying the hunt for them! The locations are also very well thought out and put together, makes it feels more like the backrooms randomness of HOW THE HELL DID I GET HERE than most games I've played that are similar to it. I think this is a VERY underrated Backrooms game! (PLAYTHROUGH BELOW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4RV0iLu2Ic

What an absolutely incredible game

I got lost, still not sure I'm really out.

Better than The Complex game pair.