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Looking for Backroom games with something to do in them other than walking
For example, games like Superliminal (solving puzzles), The Stanley Parable (exploration) and the upcoming Subliminal.
The backroom games I've looked at tend to be just about walking and walking and it gets really boring. I played the game called "Pools" and though I liked the aesthetic, I just got so bored because there wasn't anything to do at all other than just looking around and walking. any suggestions?
Play Control. The environmental design plays around with those feelings while still having an actual game.
Similarly, Abiotic Factor is not necessarily about the backrooms specifically either, but is also very very very good. Like Control, it's an SCP Foundation inspired game that features several backrooms-esque liminal space areas. But where Control is a straightforward supernatural action horror game, Abiotic Factor is a Half-Life-esque, supernatural action scifi, open-world, survival crafting game.
Edit: There is also SCP: Secret Files, which I haven't had a chance to play yet, but I bought because it looked good.
And here are a bunch more that I actually have played, and while they aren't directly SCP/Backrooms inspired they all still have a similar, liminal-space exploration vibe that I think @cuteFox might still enjoy: The Beginner's Guide (same creator as Stanley Parable), What Remains of Edith Finch, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Little Nightmares, Little Nightmares II, INSIDE, Among the Sleep, Alan Wake, Alan Wake's American Nightmare, Outer Wilds, Pacific Drive
p.s. SMii7Yplays has played a lot of SCP/Backrooms/Liminal space/Surreal horror games that also might be worth checking out. E.g. DEAD MALL, Decimate Drive, Mouthwashing, Mourning Tide, Night Bus, Arctic Eggs
A lot of people are honing in on the "horror" aspect of the Backrooms, and OP might be 100% on board with that, but I'd love to find some games that focus on strangeness or liminality without descending into outright horror. I think Control straddles that line fairly well, but OP's naming of Stanley Parable is interesting to me because it seems to emphasize the more surreal nature of the "backrooms"/liminal spaces trend than the horror elements. I enjoyed Control for similar reasons, more than something like, say, "the stairs" side of SCP media where the tension building and frisson of the unreal space is just to make the jump scares more scary.
I don't know if that ramble made any sense, so I'll try to tl;dr -
I'd also love to hear suggestions of games (with actual gameplay) that explore the surreal/unnatural elements of backrooms/liminal spaces/SCP microgenres without just using them as a vehicle for jump scares.
@phoenixrises mentioned Antichamber and I think that’s a solid suggestion that’s more in line with what you’re getting at!
Yeah Antichamber great, and I do see how it fits. Not sure how @cuteFox feels but the draw for me to the "backrooms" type game would be more along the lines of "this seemingly mundane/ordinary space is off in some compelling way" a la Control rather than Antichamber's more minimalist surreal vibe. I do remember enjoying Antichamber, though.
I'm trying to pinpoint the vibe you're looking for. Because I often associate the backrooms with mazes and being trapped. It's also a core theme in Superliminal and Stanley Parable.
The closest other gerne would be a lot of the "helpless horror". Because you can't fight back, places have a tendency of becoming very liminal after introducing a threat. Suddenly a straight line from entry to exit becomes a maze where you are in danger and can get yourself lost or cornered, even though you know where to go and what to do.
I think the Amnesia games do this well. Especially The Bunker.
Beside that, Slay the Princess is a Visual Novel in the style of Stanly Parable.
Death stranding does a good job of letting you take a mechanically complex walk across a landscape that not quite right. Baby Steps does a similar thing but you are directing every individual step. (Not nearly as bad as Getting Over It too).
If you don't care about the very deep puzzles, Blue Prince is a fun maze game where you build a house one room at a time.
If you want to go all the way off the deep end and fully embrace the surrealism of liminal spaces, theres LSD Dream Emulator and all the things inspired by it. Yume Nikke Dream Diary, Antichamber, Umurangi Generation, NaissanceE, The Void, Brainwasher, Rememoried. All of these lean heavily into the the Dreamcore and Psychodelic aesthetics and can range from deep philosophical explorations to cool nonsense environments to explore.
Edit.
Forgot to add my favorite game from here:
420BLAZEIT 2: GAME OF THE YEAR -=Dank Dreams and Goated Memes=- [#wow/11 Like and Subscribe] Poggerz Edition
Yes, that is the full name.
Yume Nikke is an excellent suggestion and you just made me realize that the concept of dungeons in games are very similar to backrooms. You're trapped in a labyrinthine space with no clear entrance or exit, often restricted from leaving until completing some task. By overcoming the minotaur does one not become an even more cunning monster?
Could you define, what a Backroom game is? Is that in reference to the backrooms creepypasta?
Yes, I'm fairly confident that OP is referring to games with a similar vibe to the Backrooms 4chan post and the subsequent fandom built around it. In case anyone hasn't heard of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Backrooms
A note for whoever can edit tags:
"genres" and "games.backroom" aren't really appropriate tags. This thread is about games with a particular aesthetic. "Backroom" isn't a game genre. I assume mycketforvirrad wasn't aware of the Backrooms concept when tagging the post. I would replace both of these tags with a "The Backrooms" tag.
First, +1 for the CONTROL suggestion, that’s a fantastic game.
Second, you have to be into horror games, but The Classrooms is quite literally just a horror game that takes place in the backrooms, or more broadly, some kind of liminal space. It’s still early access, but there are several different backrooms-adjacent levels (classrooms, library, pool rooms, several more) that all have several types of creatures in them that you must evade while looking for the exit. All of the creatures have some sort of gimmick that you need to figure out in order to avoid or otherwise escape them, I.e. some are blind but have excellent directional hearing, some can’t move as long as you maintain line of sight, and so on.
I’ve never played it, but it gained notoriety on a couple of streamers’ channels, and it seems like a decently well fleshed out attempt at putting real gameplay into a backrooms-like environment.
Second Superluminal and Stanley Parable, heard very good things about Control, but Myhouse.WAD is a Doom mod that has some very interesting liminal mechanics and puzzling layout, on top of still having to play Doom in the background.
One of the OG games in this (non euclidean) space is Antichamber! It's pretty old but I'm surprised no one recommends it anymore
A lot of people are suggesting some excellent games that have some vaguely Backroom-ish vibes, but I'm going to do the opposite and suggest a more literal Backrooms game that is maybe not going to be as widely lauded.
Backrooms Cleanup Crew is a multiplayer game where you are entering Backrooms areas after a group of previous explorers have been through and had... incidents. You're trying to reset it to look as creepily pristine as possible before the next people arrive. I haven't played it myself though I have seen it streamed. I'd recommend for anyone who enjoys Backrooms games, zany co-op games like R.E.P.O. or Lethal Company, or cleaning games like Power Wash Simulator or Crime Scene Cleaner.
As an aside, if multiplayer isn't your thing it is possible to play as a single player game. I haven't seen how that experience is personally.
I've always wanted a puzzle like backrooms game that mixes exploration with Eldritch horrors and puzzles needed to move on.
Like my interpretation of the Backrooms is it's like an open ended maze. Meaning in order to progress you need to move through areas in a deliberate way, and if you don't then you end up going deeper.
And you have to contend with Eldritch and unknowable horrors throughout, so it's not like monsters but more like areas that lure you in like a trap so you either need to avoid them or go through them a certain way to remain undetected.
Unfortunately I've never seen anything that treats the backrooms like that. I guess walking simulator games are just easy to make.