Caltrops - The Backrooms





	[quote name="blackwater"]I know the temptation is overwhelming to use a randomly generated map, but DON'T. The focus of the Backrooms game should be on the environment. A randomly generated maze doesn't cut it. You need a hand-crafted map with some stuff that is scary or just surreal. You're aiming for the uncanny valley. Doors that are obviously too small or somehow monstrous. Ordinary looking household items but somehow wrong, like they would obviously hurt you if you tried to use them. Basically, all the stuff that Kane Pixels has been doing. Like think about the clip where there's a room with just random carpeted holes in the floor. You want the map to be big, and yeah, there should be some mazes, but it shouldn't just be "my first maze game." There has to be more than that. The right gameplay loop to use for this is probably a very light puzzle game loop. Very simple puzzles, like "what if I pushed the box into the hole"? or some shit, not Time Quest or Infocom level puzzlers. And no useful weapons. You see a monster, you run like hell. Related to the uncanny valley comment -- you need high-fidelity graphics. It's like that "Homer Simpson in real life" meme. <img src="https://technabob.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/real-homer.jpg" width=700/> A lot of indie devs want to make a cartoony PS1-looking game. That won't be very scary here because your mind will fill in the details. When you add more detail, the things that are WRONG leap out at you. btw that "internal server error" thing is acting up again >:\|[/quote]