I like how this game actually goes with the implication of something else being there with you, rather than having direct monsters. Much like the original story.
i love your stuff so much man like i stopped watching for a little bit just because my interests went away from youtube and like. its so nice to be back watching your stuff again. your voice makes me really happy. i'm not trying to be weird or anything, i just like the analytical and realistic or like,... "not dramatized" commentary you give. its so refreshing and your trains of thoughts tend to be so charming, you think about things from a completely different angle than I do and it's lovely, you do a great job of actually demonstrating and sharing your POV. It's just excellent. Thank you so much for the amazing content
I should also mention there's at least 3 other completely unique paths you can explore in the first level with each path leading to their own elevator, Please give it another look!
There's so many moments in this game where it looks like there's a monster, but it's just a trick of the light or the way something is shaped. It's incredible.
Was made in UE5, real time lighting has come such a long way. Kane Pixels streamed himself playing this and even made comments about how he should be using UE5 instead of blender to make his backroom vids if this stuff is looking this good lmao.
lumen and raytracing is beautiful expect more indie games to just look like this after UE5 went into LTU versions it beams millions of lines to gather light data from the material instead of the old way which was baking shadow and lighting information into the materials
31:25 somewhat this theory of the backrooms being the result of "portions of universe's source code" amalgamated together somewhat similar to the concept of the Dead Sea of Chrono Cross, but in that game the Sea is basically all leftovers of timelines that were "discarded" by the actions of Chrono Trigger being confabulated in a single place. I wish, in a case of a truly remake of Chrono Cross, that the backrooms/liminal spaces concepts could be used in the Dead Sea.
When you were sprinting in the poolrooms level, i had to think about my mother. When i was young, maybe 6 or 7 years old she got upset and told me not to run or jump on those wet tiles, because i could fall and break my bones on the hard ground. The reason was that i was excited for the water slide and wanted to go there very quickly. the room at 23:00 looks like as if it is part of an alpine thermal bath, close to where i live in south germany. They sometimes have slanted roofs, big glass wndows and evening or night opening hours with cozy colorful lights with some background music for people to relax. It's a very paradox feeling i get there during winter, when i sit in the hot water and outside, i can see a snow storm in the dark and the silhouettes of the covered mountain tops. Two extremes jist divided by a few centimeters of glass.
@@Sam-go3mb that feeling of nostalgia shares the same dopamine reaction as remembrance. This isn't nostalgia, nostalgia is completely different and don't even pretend that is what you are experiencing right now.
Don't know about you, but I'm more upset than anything. It started off as an incredibly simple and effective concept, but now it's just... No. Don't like that.
Yeah I get what you mean with how the concept of the Backrooms has evolved. The original concept was a lot more scary. The 4chan hinted that something was in there with you but we didn’t know what. With the wiki it gives you a full detailed explanation which ruins the unknown effect. I dislike the wiki stuff but I can understand why people also prefer to use the wiki
My main theory as to why dreams have the quality they have is that it's our subconcious's best attempt at doing what it does while we're awake - creating a perceptual reality for us to live in - without any information from the outside universe. Normally when we're awake, we have this interactive, fully immersive interface, a model of the universe around us given to us by our senses. When we're asleep, our brain can't just turn off or else we would die. It has to keep running some of the usual processes, but in sleep it has no sensory input to draw from. Instead it draws from memories and thoughts. Have you ever noticed that you never dream about concepts that you've never heard of? Even fictional places like futuristic cities or vast abstract geometrical expanses are based on something you've seen or thought of. You can also influence a dream using your thoughts; whatever you think about will magically appear or happen. The reason different people sometimes dream about the same places is because we've all experienced those places. Think about it, everyone has been to a public bathroom. Everyone has been to a suburban neighborhood or at least seen one in a movie. We have similar brains which run similar processes, so we have similar dreams. It's not very supernatural or metaphysical, but I think the nature of dreams and the subjective experiences we have while dreaming can be spiritual in a way. We're all connected by this common experience, and it can often be spooky, inspiring us to make things like this game. That's really awesome to me.
The flashlight was removed in this update, and honestly I prefer it. When I first played the game, I basically relied on the flashlight to keep myself feeling sane. It was like a safety net for me, and I was often only willing to travel into darker areas because I knew I had a flashlight with me. With the flashlight removed, it makes it so much scarier. Now you have nothing to rely on, and you have to explore without any help. If there is a dark room that you need to go into, you could just shine your flashlight on it and see that, yep, nothing is there. Now, you see those dark rooms and have no way of telling if something is there or not. All you can do is step into them and hope.
Dude when I first played the game I didn't even end up discovering the flashlight lmao. I was kind of happy when it was removed cause people are now forced to have a more similar experience the first time I played.
19:14 The immediate moment that they start panicking, I get chills up my back & the onset of anxiety just filling my entire body in less than 2 seconds. This is why I absolutely love The Librarian, the times that they start getting a panic attack from anything in a horror game, or playing VR Gmod maps like Ashville feels just so genuine & how someone would actually react which I'm very appreciative of. No one else does this kinda stuff & gets the viewers to almost get the full experience of playing it themselves, along with the great commentary which raises anxiety levels even higher due to the imagery that they implant into your head when looking in an environment like these.
I haven’t found a channel quite like yours. Definitely the golden Apple of UA-cam channels and my favorite by far. I watch your videos everyday and Amongst all the fear and chaos you endure while playing these games. It’s somewhat confronting when u commentate over them! Keep up the good work man I’m proud of you
I have a theroey on the shadows, these are the other people who are wandering around, and they see you as a shadow. This is terrifying as they can't leave. As you will never leave.
Yeah... I could agree on that theory as well; other people who are stuck in the Backrooms as well ALSO (like maybe that shadow you see in that hotel-like hallway. However I would also like to add to it that "some" of the other shadows might be something else as well.
This game is fantastic! I am very pleased with the fact that it doesn’t have hostile entities and needless jump scares. The back rooms and the dream pools when done well like in this case are cozy-creepy enough as they are without added scares. I find the mystery of their existence by itself is what gives it that perfectly dreamy unsettling yet intriguing vibe. I like the idea of the back rooms being the result of somehow “dormant”source code or source code “in storage” that needs to manifest somehow because energy can neither be destroyed nor created it can only change form. So when something in the backroom changes it doesn’t happen out of malicious internet, it is just the universe/source reappropriating existing source code to create something new with it, moving it to another location/dimension while moving other code back into storage so to speak. If you happen to be present when it happens it is not that it is done to purposely scare you, it just does its thing and the reason it is panic inducing to the human is because it happens beyond the logic, beyond the physics, of what the physical human mind can comprehend as possible.
@@artimus4198 You're describing a type of dream that we probably all have had at some point. We find ourselves in a city or place that feels strangely familiar. We are making our way through the streets, rooms or maze of alleyways with a sense of having some type of mission to complete or to get to a specific destination. At some point we begin to feel that somehow there are eyes on us. We begin to pick up the pace. We feel watched. We move even faster. We feel followed. We turn around and see this shadow that somehow looks like a person...or something else? We begin to rush forward toward our destination that we do not really know how to reach. We feel chased! We are booking it now, all we want is finally get to our destination point. And then, the moment we recognize the place that we are meant to reach, when we are reaching out for the doorknob we no-clip back to our "daytime reality", we find ourselves lying in bed, arm still stretched out to open that door.... it was a dream, wasn't it?!
I feel like the stockroom where I work could be used as a backrooms level. The managers are constantly rearranging the place, so you could come back the next day and find things have changed like some cliche turn your back and things have changed trope. The lighting is based on sensors and each individual light has one, the timer is relatively short and you have to move in and out of it’s range to turn it back on. You can recreate a horror scenario where the entire back room is pitch black but suddenly one of the lights in the middle turns on. NGL, I am tempted to pull a prank this Halloween.
There's a sequel for this game in the works that looks far more promising than just being a pretty walking simulator. Recommend checking that out when it drops
Looking at progressively bizarre architecture made me realize that a game called Control does something interesting: It takes all these alien, dreamlike structures and gives them purpose. It makes the liminal... normal, almost mundane. I think that's fascinating.
Man control wad fantastic I wasnt expecting much when I started it but by the time I beat it I was shocked by how cool it was. Exploring was the best part of that game. And I havent finished the dlc yet because its actually really scary lol
I hope we get to explore the Ashtray Maze more in the sequel. As fun as the action-packed speedrun you do in the first game is, I'd really like to see it utilised more as a constantly-shifting labyrinth.
The „official” backrooms lore feels like it was written by a bunch of twelve year old kids. But Kane has managed to emphasise the good parts and added so much of his own content that it became something actually interesting to watch.
I started watching an iceberg video on the lore, and couldn't get through it all the way because it was like... The original Backrooms post: A simple, yet scary concept, about getting lost in an enormous maze of monotony. Fear of isolation and loneliness. Also implies some kind of monster(s). Extended lore: People go into the backrooms on purpose to shoot at each other with guns. There are communities and factions. Monsters are elaborately categorized. It all takes away from what made the initial post scary, on top of feeling like it underwent the same kind of corruption that zombie media did, transforming from something scary and threatening into some kind of power fantasy for survivalist types.
@@Cyfrik I can't remember what video or channel this was on, but I once saw a comment that summed up the Backrooms extended lore perfectly: "It has all the ambition of the SCP Foundation but with none of the quality control"
@@Cyfrik The Backrooms Wiki shows how overexposure breaks cosmic horror. Hell, SCP didn't fall into it because it wasn't a setting, just a writting style so mistery and scares (in most parts) is still there because SCP didn't box you in with rigid setting. Backroom on the other hand, at least the Wiki, boxed themselve in and attack everyone who have different interpretations
@@masterzoroark6664 What baffles me is when they want to act like the bs on the Backrooms Wiki is "canon" XD Like... The Backrooms are pretty much an open free-for-all concept with no strict canon aside from what was provided in the original post. Even Kane's interpretation of the Backrooms can't really be considered "canon" (although it's one of the few interpretations that's actually good). The only person who has the right to dictate what's canon and what's not is the OP and I'm pretty sure they're either anonymous or no longer around.
That beeping sound at 17:14 is from/used in Kane Pixels Backrooms video's. It indicates that a large door is closing or opening. A lot from those video's is used in this game. Actually I realise now that that whole area is from his video's.
Hey man just wanna say you have been my comfort youtuber for about a year now. Keep doing what you do. There is no other youtuber that has the same vibe and calming aesthetic as you do in gaming.
The ending (the camera falling DOWN to the ground) just reinforces to me the idea that the Backrooms were heavily inspired by the configuration of GTA III-era (specially GTA San Andreas) interiors. For sake of saving the poor space and memory of Playstation 2 (that was the target device when Rockstar developed those games), everything was stacked. The interiors are positioned high up over San Andreas (that acts like the "normal world" of the backrooms), but to not break the suspension of belief there is a variable that stores a number which, depending on what is the value, will toggle which set of interiors (or the game world) will be visible (while the others will not). When you walk to one of that yellow arrows positioned at the doors leading to the interiors, in the fade animation it tweaks that variable, teleports you to the correspondent position of that ENEX and sets the camera to you not see the outside. Before you had trainers and such the only way to escape an interior is via weird glitches, and one of the most famous was via Jetpack leaving from a gym of the game. I felt a "reverse" version of this (using glitches to enter the interiors/backrooms) made its way to the backrooms lore, and that's why i think GTA 3D era games were a great contribuitor to the backrooms lore, alongside Source games (for the liminal ambience itself). Don't believe? Just download "SAMP Map Construction (Map Editor)" from Mixmods, place it in San Andreas folder, open the editor, raise the draw distance to the maximum that you pc supports and look up. Honestly, every time i end up looking both San Andreas and its interiors visible at same time, i feel somewhat claustrophobic when i'm in the game afterwards.
Yea the original 4chan post about the backrooms was inspired from the Michigan Blue Hell theory on the conspiracy iceberg, which in particular was inspired from the gta 3, vc, and sa blue hell clipping glitches
@@Tycholarfero Yeah. We can blame Sony and the pathetic hardware of 6th-gen consoles for this urban legends spawning from the "workarounds" game devs used to shove big chunks of data in those consoles. What if PS2 had a superior hardware specs, or if Dreamcast (and SEGA hardware division) survived and become the dominant console and Rockstar targeted 3d era games to Dreamcast instead of PS2?
The graphics aren't raytraced, the lighting is mostly baked. And you can get fairly convincing 3D reflections of ceiling lights and such with a combination of box projected cubemaps and screen space reflections. A game like this has an advantage of mostly static objects, so most everything can have baked lightmaps, and that lighting can project onto any objects that move around. In something like Unreal, the engine devs took quite a bit of care to get even the cheaper effects like that looking as top notch as possible. 👍
Speaking as someone who dreams almost every night, I've never seen a single image or video relating to "liminality" that has had any effect on me other than the occasional "hey, that's a cool render". Maybe I'm not observant enough while dreaming. I've experienced all the other mentioned phenomenon, such as your dream self "always knowing" or remembering something they shouldn't, but visually games like this don't show me anything familiar or even uncomfortable to look at. Listening to these videos is relaxing to fall asleep to though.
I think you should definitely check out Kane Pixel's series on the Backrooms. It's likely the best interpretation of it currently being made, and will probably be more to your tastes than something like the Backrooms Wikidot, which is more like SCP. (Im only 12 minutes in so sorry if you actually mentioned this later in the video lol)
Definitely. As mentioned in the ending credits of the game, the game draws heavy inspiration from Kane Pixels'. Ideas like the audio beacons, waypoint tapes, and the infinite "Exit" wall is directly from it. The Librarian is missing a lot of context in this game by not having prior knowledge of Kane lore.
The original backrooms were simply, endless corridoors. No jumpscares, no monsters. Only a dredded feeling of noclipping out of existance into a familiar sense of housing turned strange. Kane Pixels' addition, or reimagination, of the backrooms is nothing compared to the original concept of the backrooms. Librarian isn't missing out on anything. As he's already stated indirectly, the original concept is more impressive than the new "creepypasta" distortion.
This game I think is the best interpretation of the backrooms yet. There's just enough activity for you to confirm you're not alone, but nothing jumps out at you. Nothing chases you. It's just the constant anxiety and fear, it's the steady increase of suspense with no relief. Then, you start seeing things. Plants that look like eels. Moving shadows. The backrooms is the fear of isolation, of being forgotten, it's the fear of fear itself.
Your comments about the backrooms seem to imply you're not fully familiar with it's origins, so I wanted to elucidate a bit here. And even if you are, this could serve as a bit of clarification for those not in the know. It really started with a post from 4chan's /x/ board, of a (somewhat edited) image of an empty office space resembling the yellow area in this game (that's where that aesthetic used in these games originated), with the caption: "If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you." I'm not entirely sure if liminal spaces (as we now know them) were already entering the public consciousness at that time or if the post kick started interest in the subject, but regardless the post certainly boosted interest in the idea after it was screengrabbed and shared around. The combination of liminal spaces, surrealism, absurdism, and abstract horror was both potent and refreshing, and spawned people's desire to further build on the concept. Reddit's r/backrooms and r/TheBackrooms served as community hubs to post images that fit the aesthetic and create "lore" to fit the varying locations. This is was originated the concept of "backroom levels". As far as I'm aware, the ordering and details of the levels are only loosely agreed upon. I'm not sure there's an official consensus. In my opinion, these communities efforts to build an established "backrooms fiction", while ernest and commendable, only serves to dilute the concept that made the backrooms so interesting in the first place. The mystery and uncertainty of the original post is what made it so horrifying, and by adding level after level (some of which barely differentiate from one another) and explaining the intricacies of each, the mystery and uncertainty is removed. The horror here is best served by the unknown. I think this game does a good job of upholding this core idea. It never plays it's hand too hard, but does give you a little peak to let you know that the game is, indeed, afoot.
"I'm not entirely sure if liminal spaces (as we now know them) were already entering the public consciousness at that time (...)" For sure is, and in my opinion strongest to American (and maybe European) folks. Every time i read the "description" of the backrooms given by the 4chan post, i became more and more sure that this originated on a blend of GTA San Andreas interior system and the emptiness of Source engine games/mods. I said i think it hits American folks first because, well, GTA series tends to emulate, in a "liminal" way, real american big cities. This alone would be enough to allow suspension of disbelief, and helps to hit hard the weird mechanics of those games, like the interior/exterior system - that is prone to bugs like the infamous Ganton Gym glitch that allows the player to roam for some visible interiors. All the channer needed to do was shoving the concept that now is called "liminal space" (that isnt a precise term to name it, in my humble opinion) to it and post in 4chan.
I get the feeling that you make games scarier. Your analysis points out horror elements I may not have noticed, and you're usually rather quiet and calm, almost sombre. Maybe that's why I couldn't handle part 1 of this at night.
26:58 Okay, in the previous playthrough before the update, what I saw here just looked like some kinda lamp that was turned off, and it was your own movements that made it look kinda like as if it was moving. This time I actually saw it moving independently of you, that was definitely something more like a head poking in and having a short peek before running off.
40:11 Stairs not meeting their target? That's actually a fairly common element in _my_ dreams. I'm always amazed how much my experiences with dreams _don't_ match those of other people. In your video on the Places You've Seen In Your Dreams map especially, it was always incredible just much my experiences seem to differ from the norm. I recognized some elements from the descriptions in your monologue, but most of it was more of a "wow, I've NEVER experienced that"-reaction. This however? This is a thing I often dream about. Stairways that just end in mid-air, usually after going down. And it's not regular stairs, but escalators. Trying to throw me into a deep fall. This is usually in large shopping centers with several different stores. They're always populated, too. Things like amusement parks and pools/water parks and shopping centers are always full of people in my dreams. I mean sure, there'll be rooms inside them that are empty, but that's because all the people are in the actual pools, not in the showers or the bizarrely expansive and open toilet rooms. In general, things in my dreams tend to be larger and grander, but also more dangerous and nonsensical than in real life. I have seen giant towers made of stone just collapse. An enormous cathedral with a road going through the outer decorative pillar structures. Lakes surrounded by mountains, based loosely on real places but exaggerated. Tunnels that curve and dip in unrealistic ways, both for cars and for pedestrians. And very little of it matches up with most of the descriptions I've heard, of other people's dreams and their common elements, on this channel. Sure there's the stream-of-consciousness logic that weirdly transitions from one thing to the next, but my dreams never seem to curve back on the original plot. They just forget what the original plot was and I remember it only after I wake up.
Approximately 44:00 discussion on running in dreams and familiar places being off Now _this_ I recognize from my own dreams! Especially pushing off of things in dreams to try and run faster. I often feel like running dreams is like running in water, there's so much resistance but you almost never notice how weird that is until you wake up. Likewise with dream locations being off, and noticing they're off.
Ive always said that the backrooms is like the minecraft farlands, its where reality seems to break down but with things connected to what you normally see. Strange structures that the code struggled to create but its there.
44:44 for me I’m far too light when I try to run, but I’ve learned to subconsciously master dream running(can only have so many nightmares before you get good at surviving them) and I’ve got up to some truly ridiculous speeds moon leaping and pushing off with incredible force, not something anyone could do irl
At one point i had so many nightmares about something trying to kill me and bieng chased by them or it that after some time, every time i had a nightmare like that i instantly realized that i was dreaming and most of the time started Beating them or it up as a revenge against my unconsciousness for giving me so many nightmares. And after doing that for like the sixth time, i did not have nightmares for a little while after that, and i don't remember having a nightmare like that again after that, or atleast i don't remember right now. I think i was 7. Also now most of the time if i die in a dream, i see black and then i think: wait...if im dead how am i thinking right now? And then i get up, im most of the time lucid and the dream always just kinda goes into akward silence since it does not know what to do now like a stand up comedian forgetting Their Script. (if the death was by a fall of any kind then 100% of the time i get back up) and this also became to be because of overusage of something in a dream, in this case I often died of a fall in dreams. Edit: Wow i really thought i made this comment a year ago, i guess not.
As someone who thinks the "off brand SCP universe backrooms lore" is violently boring, the kane pixel videos are pretty great. They are in my opinion the true backrooms lore, or at least what the backrooms should be.
You’re right, those echoes in the pool cathedral were singing a hymn. It was Schubert’s “Ave Maria” played in the muffled far distance with a ton of reverb. Hearing human vocalizing in the backrooms is enough to put me on the defensive
26:58 This moment right here. This is the moment that made me turn this fucking game off. Hell no. I was already drowning in the sensation of bottomless dread from how intangible yet familiar everything seemed to be but my heart stopped when I saw that thing take a quick peek at me before fading back into the shroud of darkness down that hallway. This moment will stay with me forever. It will surface in my worst nightmares.
That doorless set of window rooms (especially the one with closet, activated some ancient memories and fears when I was like 4 or 5 years old, that was.. bizarre.
"What is it that is so unnerving about high ceilings?" , The old man in you knows how bad the heat bill will be during the backrooms long winter season 😆
As for the sounds, I had the thought now- you hear sounds of reality. Picture backrooms of any other place, you can hear people and other things through the walls, you can hear the "formal space" while you are in backrooms of a mall or school. So being on backrooms of reality you might hear the sounds of "formal reality", the outside.
Wether you enjoy the back rooms or not, the back rooms enjoy you. The style of narration with your cadence plus vocabulary choices make for an excellent viewing experience. Love your videos, I found you by looking at anemoiopolis (prob spelled wrong).
When I see the neighborhood, I think of a scene in monster house that is really creepy for a child. It shows a kid sleeping and a red light shinny into the room. But then a shadow hand that can move things appears, and just before it gets him, the kid wakes up.
23:00 That whole segment with the poolrooms and choir like ambient music was perfect, you are naturally defensive and distrust what the music is: a trap perhaps? But the more you listen to it the more you are reminded of places on earth, you almost have a foggy sensation cloud your mind, you wouldn’t mind staying here. But you choose to move away from the comforting music and scenery back into darkness and uneasy silence. It’s like getting out of bed when you are the most comfy, ripping the metaphorical bandaid off to explore and hopefully escape.
Also, I like the idea of Backrooms having "bioms" not a rigid transitional parts (like elevators). It makes it feel more infinite with the only measure of you moving being the "biome" change- comming from the yellow back area to abandoned mall, the poolrooms bring like cave system that expands even more, connections between the bioms being blurry and odd- like sudden sofa or launge in a mine
i think we found it. the most realistic looking video game of all time. and the thing that makes this even better than AAA, is that there is actual effort. the subtle extra wobble the camera makes when climbing down the stairs, the incredibly realistic noise the sounds of footsteps make. all of this included with the sounds, lighting and very detailed textures makes this feel real. these details are what separates Indie from AAA. Or VR from computer. I think that no game will surpass the graphics this game has for at least 10 years or even more.
The HEAVY post processing hides a whole lot of visual artifacts that litter the world which is to this game's benefit. It does look realistic but when you play it and get up close to things the illusion breaks down fast thanks to the copious amounts of texture seams and low res assets. I do agree it looks very good but I couldn't declare it the most 'realistic' looking video game of all time, I think the Vanishing of Ethan Carter looks better by a long shot.
36:03 you know, a lot of liminal space areas don't get me, but this one does, it's something about the high ceiling and the low walls, it reminds me of something like sky zone, but empty, there's no attractions, and the damp yellow walls with the florescent lighting, a mimicry of what it normally is, just sorta unerving
I really enjoyed this, but, I agree, the mall was very lacking, as well as other areas. The Complex: Expedition seems to have a lot more stuff, too. Thanks for sharing this.
Love the video! It's funny, I found out about this game after seeing this vid recommended to me after watching some of your other Gmod backrooms videos this past week, but I actually went and played it before coming back and watching this. And wouldn't you know it, you and I took the exact same path through! And in noticing this, your walkthrough confirmed something I had suspected during my own, that there are other elevators to other levels that we didn't take. Bad new for us, we have to play it again to see where they lead lmao!
At 17:26 you mentioned trains, it just occured to me, I went there one time! It's a holiday hotel in london iirc inside the trainstation..? Crowne plaza!! Just googled it and found it, no wonder that liminal space deeply brought back holiday feels. You literally just opened up old memories of when I was like...6, holy crap. That's so weird, that that's even real. And the train noises make sense!! Because inside one of the train station terminals.
11:10 I felt immediate discomfort as you walked into the room. Something about that ramp leading up to the railing, it has no reason to exist, yet it does. Then it goes down to a set of pillars, their shape slightly distorted because of the camera effect. Unless something new shows up as I continue to watch, this is by far one of the most unsettling liminal space I think I've ever seen, at least to me personally. Unrelated edit but I wanted to include, at 38:30, I actually had a dream very similar to this relatively recently. I have a poor relationship with my father, and in my dream he had a heart attack. When this happened, though, everything turned red. Almost the exact same colour in the video. When I looked out the kitchen window I could only see so far, because the combination of it being night and the deep red darkened the distance. Edit II: 39:30 also reminds me of dreams that I've had, this time recurring. It wasn't super similar to this, but it has a couple connections. When I was younger both my parents would work at the same time frequently, so I went to live with my aunt a good bit of the time. This gave me a pretty good feel for her house, which made it a perfect candidate for these dreams. There would always be a little crawlspace above me, just high enough for me to pull myself up into. I would weave my way through the framework of the house until I reached a little area I claimed as mine. Nobody would ever question where I went, so I was free to spend as much time up there as I like. Despite me actually being at her house several times since these dreams started, only relatively recently did I realise that they were dreams. Not only that, but I didn't even realise it on my own. Someone had said something to me that made it hit me suddenly. Final Edit as the outro plays out: The red neighbourhood bit, it didn't even dawn on me that I had a dream like that until you said something, and sorry if this didn't make perfect sense grammatically, I'm not great with English.
The suburban area, especially the part with the houses inside of the tunnel, really feel like things you would see on a dark ride in a theme park for some reason.
I love seeing these liminal spaces because I haven't dreamed of any spaces like them that I can remember. It's eerie and intriguing to know so many people do share certain imagery. Anyone else's dreams almost entirely consist of alternate versions of your current life? Things are just slightly different, or sometimes major. Feels like I'm peaking through a window at a different version of myself.
Kids and their monsters. Everything needs a monster :( Isn't more interesting an idea that Backrooms are like a passive organism, that mimics our surroundings, creating endless rooms? Waiting for living creatures to get caught by the glitch in reality or maybe by something more direct? Then just waiting untill you die from dehydration and hunger and your body starts decomposing. Maybe that's why the carpets are damp? Maybe it's covered with digestive juices? You know, like those carnivorous plants? :D Do animals can get trapped in backrooms too? or they sense the glitches and don't fall into?
I think it's so much more disturbing and interesting when you're alone for so long that you keep expecting some unseeable being will be around the next corner, and your brain starts forcing itself to look for this, slowly driving you into unexplainable horror and hyperventilation. And then right at the end, the character is so noxious and unstable and that is when the entity reveals itself. I don't know...the setting makes the monster creature scary, once you're used to them the effect starts to die except for a few exceptionally disturbing characters that would be unsettling in any setting. But that goofy tangled bacteria guy is just goofy. But something like an alien can be horrifying because you expect them to do something unimaginable to you in the coming moment, not just start running at you to punch you lol. But us writers, and game players can't process exactly what they might do, just the general cliches of meeting the unknown like convulsing on the floor while your eyes bleed out and heart stops. That seems to be the running thing. But there's this story and it took a completely different twist. You don't see what happens but the victim of whatever it is, is left contorted in the most gruesome ways imaginable, with their eyes gouged out and mouth agape. And later in the story the main 3 are left, and while sleeping, the other guy tells the main guy to wake up, told him he saw something in the landscape, saw something walking just past. It was him (referring to the guy sleeping 'Lenko') Novak and Tarkov both realizing aware of the situation began leaving. Just then Lenko asked "are you my friend?" I realized what was wrong with Lenko, his eyes were solid black. What are you!? "We are..... everything" Lenko replied unnaturally. Novak screamed as its mouth opened far too large and bit down into Novaks neck engulfing his face." I love the being in that story, and the atmosphere of it is phenomenal. It's on Dark Somniums channel titled "I know why we never returned to the moon". The horror element in it is unmatched. Two other stories are similar to that, "This is what we saw" #1, and "an astronaut is in my backyard" #2. Enjoy.
18:20 i think this section is reminiscent of one of the MIB endings, where the world is shown to be like a microscopic cage in a larger "multiverse". I dont remember exacly what MIB is this ending, there is one where Tommy Lee Jones character opens a huge door and it is shown to be just a lock door in a much larger world.
You might like a game called "BEWARE". It takes place in a spooky post-apocalyptic looking environment. You're driving a car thru the wasteland while being stalked by someone. It has paranormal/anomalous things too.
Ngl, I kinda wish for you to try out Industria. It's like this Half-Life/BioShock inspired game where you end up in an abandoned city infested with robots in an alternative version of Earth. The game isn't horror by any means. The entire story actually takes place during the day, but you'll be visiting many dimly lit areas while trying to survive... *Mostly* alone. It's a short but very sweet experience.
Something I noticed in the game is that the mall sign had social media icons on it and other things that didn't exist during the time the game takes place.
By the way he talks it reminds me of big bang theory, not just the tone but also his vocabulary. I think I might subscribe because for some reason he draws me in just through talking.
Id love the thought of the chair just… the small details like the carpet being wet. If the chair was also that slightly damp like a bench after a night of rain and just slightly uneven enough that you notice
It seems that the creator is inspired more by Kane Pixels take than the Wiki take on Backrooms... Which I approve. The Kane Pixels approach has far more mystery to it and doesn't overexplain itself, encouraging you to engage with your own ideas of what might be further in. Sry, I just havr aversion to overexplanation and overexposure in cosmic horror stories
The weirdest part of this game is that you can wander around, you can walk, crouch, and do previously mentioned simultaneously. You can even run but you are unable to jump over obstacles such as low fences or metal barriers xD
I know this isn't game isn't technically kane pixels backrooms but I still like the hilarious idea that whatever sentient force is the backrooms environment itself just starts randomly spawning nonsensical caution tape just to fuck with Async XD
I've seen a fair bit of stuff about the backrooms, though I'm not an expert, so can someone tell me if people have delved into non-Euclidean spaces? From what I've seen, the geometry of these spaces, while odd, is still "sensible" and comprehensible. I've not see things like someone walking into a room that, from the outside, must be X size, but on the inside is far larger or smaller than X; to pick a basic example. I've wanted to see people play around with non-Euclidean spaces as a horror tool, and it'd blend seamlessly into the backrooms imo. I can even imagine this used as an escalation, where in "deeper layers", the rules governing the backrooms become more and more incomprehensible and maddening.
@@tommeakin1732 There are so many backrooms videos out there that they all kinda blend, but I remember videos from Dinnerbone 777, Kane Pixels, and Matt Studios including some non-euclidean spaces.
I think you might like the book "House of Leaves." The story is multilayered, and one of the layers focuses on a scenario similar to what you're asking for.
@@Slipperyslab I meant the situations/scenarios not specifically where they came from, as I know I struggle to remember which vid is what myself lol ^^
Please please _please_ watch all of Kane Pixels' Backrooms videos to date. As the game draws heavy inspiration from it, a lot of the context, that is familiar to others who had watched it, is lost to you even on this second playthorugh.
Thinking about it now, I do remember having some dreams that might be considered liminal. I always dreamt of my grandparents apartment being in a giant apartment complex, far larger than it actually is. not only that, but I also quite clearly remember how in my dreams the only way up was up a narrow, broken flight of stairs with no railings. I don't remember why I dreamt of climbing them, I remember them being quite scary, yet I do not know why I dreamt of climbing them. I also remember some kind of warped version of my home's family room. the ceiling is miles high and the walls are like jelly. wiggling and stuff. purple light or vision I dunno. and then there's the pyramid hotel thing. imagine a new york apartment. black walls. egypt theme or somethin idk. red carpet. a hotel, only it was in a big black pyramid. a pyramid in the middle of a desolate wasteland. just a black barren wasteland. dead trees. quite a scary dream oddly enough. these liminal dreams always had my family in them. perhaps I am afraid of losing them or being without them. like a child in a mall whose lost their parents. that sort of terror.
I've always had nightmare of people I guess. dreams where I am constantly trying to prevent people, who I know are smart enough to be safe, from doing dangerous things. like drinking something that is obviously poison, getting into something unsafe, or going up to some _thing_ that'll kill them. Something about that has always terrified me.
the suburban home in red glow could be because of light streaming in through the eyelids, causing the dream-image of a suburban area to combine with the actual visual input of the morning sunlight dyed red.
Yet again I watch another video of this game and find things I didn't notice when I played but also note that you didn't see all the things I did. Like you didn't find the empty grocery store frozen section or the "basement at a friend's house" liminal space either.
17:34 if you want an explanation for this noise you can watch kane pixels' backrooms series as this game is the closest resemblance of his series Edit: i just reached the end of the video and oh, guess other people have been recommending it too haha
This is THE backrooms game in my mind for two reasons, it's not a monster maze, and it has verticality! This alone makes it the best, but noooo, it doesn't just stop there, it also has multiple levels that look just as good as the first. And it's free. No competition, period.
I like how this game actually goes with the implication of something else being there with you, rather than having direct monsters. Much like the original story.
And that's the way I like it best.
Yeah, it scares me WAYYYY more than an actual monster chasing me
i love your stuff so much man like i stopped watching for a little bit just because my interests went away from youtube and like. its so nice to be back watching your stuff again. your voice makes me really happy. i'm not trying to be weird or anything, i just like the analytical and realistic or like,... "not dramatized" commentary you give. its so refreshing and your trains of thoughts tend to be so charming, you think about things from a completely different angle than I do and it's lovely, you do a great job of actually demonstrating and sharing your POV. It's just excellent. Thank you so much for the amazing content
I should also mention there's at least 3 other completely unique paths you can explore in the first level with each path leading to their own elevator, Please give it another look!
Yeah I noticed the parking lot wasnt there this time around so how different are they? Enough to warrant another play through?
I was going to say the same thing!
There's so many moments in this game where it looks like there's a monster, but it's just a trick of the light or the way something is shaped. It's incredible.
Creepy and comfy fans are eating good tonight. I'm excited to see what they added in this update, hopefully it's not as frustrating.
This game looks like it was made out of billions of images or something,it looks realistic asf
Was made in UE5, real time lighting has come such a long way. Kane Pixels streamed himself playing this and even made comments about how he should be using UE5 instead of blender to make his backroom vids if this stuff is looking this good lmao.
Videos are infact, large collections of images in a sequence😛
Just a lot of filters
lumen and raytracing is beautiful expect more indie games to just look like this after UE5 went into LTU versions
it beams millions of lines to gather light data from the material instead of the old way which was baking shadow and lighting information into the materials
Troll
31:25 somewhat this theory of the backrooms being the result of "portions of universe's source code" amalgamated together somewhat similar to the concept of the Dead Sea of Chrono Cross, but in that game the Sea is basically all leftovers of timelines that were "discarded" by the actions of Chrono Trigger being confabulated in a single place.
I wish, in a case of a truly remake of Chrono Cross, that the backrooms/liminal spaces concepts could be used in the Dead Sea.
I like how most horror UA-camrs start panicking and screaming when they get scared but this guy just starts getting all philosophical
When you were sprinting in the poolrooms level, i had to think about my mother. When i was young, maybe 6 or 7 years old she got upset and told me not to run or jump on those wet tiles, because i could fall and break my bones on the hard ground. The reason was that i was excited for the water slide and wanted to go there very quickly.
the room at 23:00 looks like as if it is part of an alpine thermal bath, close to where i live in south germany. They sometimes have slanted roofs, big glass wndows and evening or night opening hours with cozy colorful lights with some background music for people to relax. It's a very paradox feeling i get there during winter, when i sit in the hot water and outside, i can see a snow storm in the dark and the silhouettes of the covered mountain tops. Two extremes jist divided by a few centimeters of glass.
And just like that I have a weird mix of pining and nostalgia for another place I've never been.
@@Sam-go3mb that feeling of nostalgia shares the same dopamine reaction as remembrance. This isn't nostalgia, nostalgia is completely different and don't even pretend that is what you are experiencing right now.
@@WitchKing-Of-Angmar 😂
This game is too realistic for its own good, Backrooms content is evolving and I'm not sure on whether or not I should be scared or excited!
Don't know about you, but I'm more upset than anything. It started off as an incredibly simple and effective concept, but now it's just... No. Don't like that.
@@cheekibreeki904 But the game is just like the original concept, wandering through emptyness. Unless you are talking about the wiki stuff.
@@VVS84 good for the game, then.
Yeah I get what you mean with how the concept of the Backrooms has evolved. The original concept was a lot more scary. The 4chan hinted that something was in there with you but we didn’t know what. With the wiki it gives you a full detailed explanation which ruins the unknown effect. I dislike the wiki stuff but I can understand why people also prefer to use the wiki
My main theory as to why dreams have the quality they have is that it's our subconcious's best attempt at doing what it does while we're awake - creating a perceptual reality for us to live in - without any information from the outside universe. Normally when we're awake, we have this interactive, fully immersive interface, a model of the universe around us given to us by our senses. When we're asleep, our brain can't just turn off or else we would die. It has to keep running some of the usual processes, but in sleep it has no sensory input to draw from. Instead it draws from memories and thoughts. Have you ever noticed that you never dream about concepts that you've never heard of? Even fictional places like futuristic cities or vast abstract geometrical expanses are based on something you've seen or thought of. You can also influence a dream using your thoughts; whatever you think about will magically appear or happen.
The reason different people sometimes dream about the same places is because we've all experienced those places. Think about it, everyone has been to a public bathroom. Everyone has been to a suburban neighborhood or at least seen one in a movie. We have similar brains which run similar processes, so we have similar dreams.
It's not very supernatural or metaphysical, but I think the nature of dreams and the subjective experiences we have while dreaming can be spiritual in a way. We're all connected by this common experience, and it can often be spooky, inspiring us to make things like this game. That's really awesome to me.
Very good take brother that makes a lot of sense
The flashlight was removed in this update, and honestly I prefer it. When I first played the game, I basically relied on the flashlight to keep myself feeling sane. It was like a safety net for me, and I was often only willing to travel into darker areas because I knew I had a flashlight with me. With the flashlight removed, it makes it so much scarier. Now you have nothing to rely on, and you have to explore without any help. If there is a dark room that you need to go into, you could just shine your flashlight on it and see that, yep, nothing is there. Now, you see those dark rooms and have no way of telling if something is there or not. All you can do is step into them and hope.
Dude when I first played the game I didn't even end up discovering the flashlight lmao. I was kind of happy when it was removed cause people are now forced to have a more similar experience the first time I played.
19:14 The immediate moment that they start panicking, I get chills up my back & the onset of anxiety just filling my entire body in less than 2 seconds. This is why I absolutely love The Librarian, the times that they start getting a panic attack from anything in a horror game, or playing VR Gmod maps like Ashville feels just so genuine & how someone would actually react which I'm very appreciative of. No one else does this kinda stuff & gets the viewers to almost get the full experience of playing it themselves, along with the great commentary which raises anxiety levels even higher due to the imagery that they implant into your head when looking in an environment like these.
2 uploads a day is truly a blessing, thank you library man
🍎
@@0x0luadumbass 😮
@@spiner2315 apêl
@@0x0luadumbass i don't get it
@@lysetsfyrste their profile picture is 🍎
I haven’t found a channel quite like yours. Definitely the golden Apple of UA-cam channels and my favorite by far. I watch your videos everyday and Amongst all the fear and chaos you endure while playing these games. It’s somewhat confronting when u commentate over them! Keep up the good work man I’m proud of you
I have a theroey on the shadows, these are the other people who are wandering around, and they see you as a shadow. This is terrifying as they can't leave. As you will never leave.
Nice pfp. Geronimo :)
Yeah... I could agree on that theory as well; other people who are stuck in the Backrooms as well ALSO (like maybe that shadow you see in that hotel-like hallway. However I would also like to add to it that "some" of the other shadows might be something else as well.
Such a comforting channel
As someone who loves horror of many medias, I love you commentary while you play and your more long form essay videos about the spookies. Keep it up.
This game is fantastic! I am very pleased with the fact that it doesn’t have hostile entities and needless jump scares. The back rooms and the dream pools when done well like in this case are cozy-creepy enough as they are without added scares. I find the mystery of their existence by itself is what gives it that perfectly dreamy unsettling yet intriguing vibe.
I like the idea of the back rooms being the result of somehow “dormant”source code or source code “in storage” that needs to manifest somehow because energy can neither be destroyed nor created it can only change form. So when something in the backroom changes it doesn’t happen out of malicious internet, it is just the universe/source reappropriating existing source code to create something new with it, moving it to another location/dimension while moving other code back into storage so to speak. If you happen to be present when it happens it is not that it is done to purposely scare you, it just does its thing and the reason it is panic inducing to the human is because it happens beyond the logic, beyond the physics, of what the physical human mind can comprehend as possible.
@@artimus4198 You're describing a type of dream that we probably all have had at some point. We find ourselves in a city or place that feels strangely familiar. We are making our way through the streets, rooms or maze of alleyways with a sense of having some type of mission to complete or to get to a specific destination. At some point we begin to feel that somehow there are eyes on us. We begin to pick up the pace. We feel watched. We move even faster. We feel followed. We turn around and see this shadow that somehow looks like a person...or something else? We begin to rush forward toward our destination that we do not really know how to reach. We feel chased! We are booking it now, all we want is finally get to our destination point. And then, the moment we recognize the place that we are meant to reach, when we are reaching out for the doorknob we no-clip back to our "daytime reality", we find ourselves lying in bed, arm still stretched out to open that door.... it was a dream, wasn't it?!
I feel like the stockroom where I work could be used as a backrooms level.
The managers are constantly rearranging the place, so you could come back the next day and find things have changed like some cliche turn your back and things have changed trope.
The lighting is based on sensors and each individual light has one, the timer is relatively short and you have to move in and out of it’s range to turn it back on. You can recreate a horror scenario where the entire back room is pitch black but suddenly one of the lights in the middle turns on.
NGL, I am tempted to pull a prank this Halloween.
That sounds like a lot of fun
Do it.
If you want
There's a sequel for this game in the works that looks far more promising than just being a pretty walking simulator. Recommend checking that out when it drops
Does it have a name yet?
@@M_reapr The Complex: Expedition, if i recall correctly
Looking at progressively bizarre architecture made me realize that a game called Control does something interesting: It takes all these alien, dreamlike structures and gives them purpose. It makes the liminal... normal, almost mundane. I think that's fascinating.
Man control wad fantastic I wasnt expecting much when I started it but by the time I beat it I was shocked by how cool it was. Exploring was the best part of that game. And I havent finished the dlc yet because its actually really scary lol
I hope we get to explore the Ashtray Maze more in the sequel. As fun as the action-packed speedrun you do in the first game is, I'd really like to see it utilised more as a constantly-shifting labyrinth.
The „official” backrooms lore feels like it was written by a bunch of twelve year old kids. But Kane has managed to emphasise the good parts and added so much of his own content that it became something actually interesting to watch.
I started watching an iceberg video on the lore, and couldn't get through it all the way because it was like...
The original Backrooms post: A simple, yet scary concept, about getting lost in an enormous maze of monotony. Fear of isolation and loneliness. Also implies some kind of monster(s).
Extended lore: People go into the backrooms on purpose to shoot at each other with guns. There are communities and factions. Monsters are elaborately categorized.
It all takes away from what made the initial post scary, on top of feeling like it underwent the same kind of corruption that zombie media did, transforming from something scary and threatening into some kind of power fantasy for survivalist types.
@@Cyfrik well said
@@Cyfrik I can't remember what video or channel this was on, but I once saw a comment that summed up the Backrooms extended lore perfectly: "It has all the ambition of the SCP Foundation but with none of the quality control"
@@Cyfrik
The Backrooms Wiki shows how overexposure breaks cosmic horror.
Hell, SCP didn't fall into it because it wasn't a setting, just a writting style so mistery and scares (in most parts) is still there because SCP didn't box you in with rigid setting.
Backroom on the other hand, at least the Wiki, boxed themselve in and attack everyone who have different interpretations
@@masterzoroark6664 What baffles me is when they want to act like the bs on the Backrooms Wiki is "canon" XD Like... The Backrooms are pretty much an open free-for-all concept with no strict canon aside from what was provided in the original post. Even Kane's interpretation of the Backrooms can't really be considered "canon" (although it's one of the few interpretations that's actually good). The only person who has the right to dictate what's canon and what's not is the OP and I'm pretty sure they're either anonymous or no longer around.
i can't stand that you don't check your corners, you will walk out of a hallway, look forwards, and then start moving left without glancing right
That beeping sound at 17:14 is from/used in Kane Pixels Backrooms video's. It indicates that a large door is closing or opening. A lot from those video's is used in this game. Actually I realise now that that whole area is from his video's.
Hey man just wanna say you have been my comfort youtuber for about a year now. Keep doing what you do. There is no other youtuber that has the same vibe and calming aesthetic as you do in gaming.
The ending (the camera falling DOWN to the ground) just reinforces to me the idea that the Backrooms were heavily inspired by the configuration of GTA III-era (specially GTA San Andreas) interiors.
For sake of saving the poor space and memory of Playstation 2 (that was the target device when Rockstar developed those games), everything was stacked. The interiors are positioned high up over San Andreas (that acts like the "normal world" of the backrooms), but to not break the suspension of belief there is a variable that stores a number which, depending on what is the value, will toggle which set of interiors (or the game world) will be visible (while the others will not). When you walk to one of that yellow arrows positioned at the doors leading to the interiors, in the fade animation it tweaks that variable, teleports you to the correspondent position of that ENEX and sets the camera to you not see the outside.
Before you had trainers and such the only way to escape an interior is via weird glitches, and one of the most famous was via Jetpack leaving from a gym of the game. I felt a "reverse" version of this (using glitches to enter the interiors/backrooms) made its way to the backrooms lore, and that's why i think GTA 3D era games were a great contribuitor to the backrooms lore, alongside Source games (for the liminal ambience itself).
Don't believe? Just download "SAMP Map Construction (Map Editor)" from Mixmods, place it in San Andreas folder, open the editor, raise the draw distance to the maximum that you pc supports and look up. Honestly, every time i end up looking both San Andreas and its interiors visible at same time, i feel somewhat claustrophobic when i'm in the game afterwards.
Yea the original 4chan post about the backrooms was inspired from the Michigan Blue Hell theory on the conspiracy iceberg, which in particular was inspired from the gta 3, vc, and sa blue hell clipping glitches
@@Tycholarfero Yeah. We can blame Sony and the pathetic hardware of 6th-gen consoles for this urban legends spawning from the "workarounds" game devs used to shove big chunks of data in those consoles.
What if PS2 had a superior hardware specs, or if Dreamcast (and SEGA hardware division) survived and become the dominant console and Rockstar targeted 3d era games to Dreamcast instead of PS2?
The graphics aren't raytraced, the lighting is mostly baked. And you can get fairly convincing 3D reflections of ceiling lights and such with a combination of box projected cubemaps and screen space reflections. A game like this has an advantage of mostly static objects, so most everything can have baked lightmaps, and that lighting can project onto any objects that move around. In something like Unreal, the engine devs took quite a bit of care to get even the cheaper effects like that looking as top notch as possible. 👍
Speaking as someone who dreams almost every night, I've never seen a single image or video relating to "liminality" that has had any effect on me other than the occasional "hey, that's a cool render". Maybe I'm not observant enough while dreaming. I've experienced all the other mentioned phenomenon, such as your dream self "always knowing" or remembering something they shouldn't, but visually games like this don't show me anything familiar or even uncomfortable to look at. Listening to these videos is relaxing to fall asleep to though.
I think you should definitely check out Kane Pixel's series on the Backrooms. It's likely the best interpretation of it currently being made, and will probably be more to your tastes than something like the Backrooms Wikidot, which is more like SCP.
(Im only 12 minutes in so sorry if you actually mentioned this later in the video lol)
But it is still really lore heavy with some episodes just being there to give more lore.
Definitely. As mentioned in the ending credits of the game, the game draws heavy inspiration from Kane Pixels'. Ideas like the audio beacons, waypoint tapes, and the infinite "Exit" wall is directly from it. The Librarian is missing a lot of context in this game by not having prior knowledge of Kane lore.
@@mfaizsyahmi No hes not. It has some of kanes levels but you don't need to know the lore of a image to know if it's a good liminal space.
The original backrooms were simply, endless corridoors. No jumpscares, no monsters. Only a dredded feeling of noclipping out of existance into a familiar sense of housing turned strange. Kane Pixels' addition, or reimagination, of the backrooms is nothing compared to the original concept of the backrooms.
Librarian isn't missing out on anything. As he's already stated indirectly, the original concept is more impressive than the new "creepypasta" distortion.
This game I think is the best interpretation of the backrooms yet. There's just enough activity for you to confirm you're not alone, but nothing jumps out at you. Nothing chases you. It's just the constant anxiety and fear, it's the steady increase of suspense with no relief. Then, you start seeing things. Plants that look like eels. Moving shadows. The backrooms is the fear of isolation, of being forgotten, it's the fear of fear itself.
The implementation of the "Ave Maria" during the Pool Rooms section, good lord... that was... Beautiful!
Your comments about the backrooms seem to imply you're not fully familiar with it's origins, so I wanted to elucidate a bit here. And even if you are, this could serve as a bit of clarification for those not in the know.
It really started with a post from 4chan's /x/ board, of a (somewhat edited) image of an empty office space resembling the yellow area in this game (that's where that aesthetic used in these games originated), with the caption:
"If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in.
God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell has heard you."
I'm not entirely sure if liminal spaces (as we now know them) were already entering the public consciousness at that time or if the post kick started interest in the subject, but regardless the post certainly boosted interest in the idea after it was screengrabbed and shared around. The combination of liminal spaces, surrealism, absurdism, and abstract horror was both potent and refreshing, and spawned people's desire to further build on the concept. Reddit's r/backrooms and r/TheBackrooms served as community hubs to post images that fit the aesthetic and create "lore" to fit the varying locations. This is was originated the concept of "backroom levels". As far as I'm aware, the ordering and details of the levels are only loosely agreed upon. I'm not sure there's an official consensus.
In my opinion, these communities efforts to build an established "backrooms fiction", while ernest and commendable, only serves to dilute the concept that made the backrooms so interesting in the first place. The mystery and uncertainty of the original post is what made it so horrifying, and by adding level after level (some of which barely differentiate from one another) and explaining the intricacies of each, the mystery and uncertainty is removed. The horror here is best served by the unknown. I think this game does a good job of upholding this core idea. It never plays it's hand too hard, but does give you a little peak to let you know that the game is, indeed, afoot.
"I'm not entirely sure if liminal spaces (as we now know them) were already entering the public consciousness at that time (...)"
For sure is, and in my opinion strongest to American (and maybe European) folks. Every time i read the "description" of the backrooms given by the 4chan post, i became more and more sure that this originated on a blend of GTA San Andreas interior system and the emptiness of Source engine games/mods.
I said i think it hits American folks first because, well, GTA series tends to emulate, in a "liminal" way, real american big cities. This alone would be enough to allow suspension of disbelief, and helps to hit hard the weird mechanics of those games, like the interior/exterior system - that is prone to bugs like the infamous Ganton Gym glitch that allows the player to roam for some visible interiors.
All the channer needed to do was shoving the concept that now is called "liminal space" (that isnt a precise term to name it, in my humble opinion) to it and post in 4chan.
I get the feeling that you make games scarier. Your analysis points out horror elements I may not have noticed, and you're usually rather quiet and calm, almost sombre. Maybe that's why I couldn't handle part 1 of this at night.
26:58
Okay, in the previous playthrough before the update, what I saw here just looked like some kinda lamp that was turned off, and it was your own movements that made it look kinda like as if it was moving. This time I actually saw it moving independently of you, that was definitely something more like a head poking in and having a short peek before running off.
38:00
The red lighting makes the trees look kinda like flames or explosions that have been frozen in time.
40:11
Stairs not meeting their target? That's actually a fairly common element in _my_ dreams. I'm always amazed how much my experiences with dreams _don't_ match those of other people. In your video on the Places You've Seen In Your Dreams map especially, it was always incredible just much my experiences seem to differ from the norm. I recognized some elements from the descriptions in your monologue, but most of it was more of a "wow, I've NEVER experienced that"-reaction.
This however? This is a thing I often dream about. Stairways that just end in mid-air, usually after going down. And it's not regular stairs, but escalators. Trying to throw me into a deep fall. This is usually in large shopping centers with several different stores. They're always populated, too. Things like amusement parks and pools/water parks and shopping centers are always full of people in my dreams. I mean sure, there'll be rooms inside them that are empty, but that's because all the people are in the actual pools, not in the showers or the bizarrely expansive and open toilet rooms.
In general, things in my dreams tend to be larger and grander, but also more dangerous and nonsensical than in real life. I have seen giant towers made of stone just collapse. An enormous cathedral with a road going through the outer decorative pillar structures. Lakes surrounded by mountains, based loosely on real places but exaggerated. Tunnels that curve and dip in unrealistic ways, both for cars and for pedestrians. And very little of it matches up with most of the descriptions I've heard, of other people's dreams and their common elements, on this channel. Sure there's the stream-of-consciousness logic that weirdly transitions from one thing to the next, but my dreams never seem to curve back on the original plot. They just forget what the original plot was and I remember it only after I wake up.
Approximately 44:00 discussion on running in dreams and familiar places being off
Now _this_ I recognize from my own dreams! Especially pushing off of things in dreams to try and run faster. I often feel like running dreams is like running in water, there's so much resistance but you almost never notice how weird that is until you wake up.
Likewise with dream locations being off, and noticing they're off.
Ive always said that the backrooms is like the minecraft farlands, its where reality seems to break down but with things connected to what you normally see. Strange structures that the code struggled to create but its there.
40:53 Is the exact scene I had in my head when you used that term in the last video on this game, I feel weirdly validated now.
44:44 for me I’m far too light when I try to run, but I’ve learned to subconsciously master dream running(can only have so many nightmares before you get good at surviving them) and I’ve got up to some truly ridiculous speeds moon leaping and pushing off with incredible force, not something anyone could do irl
At one point i had so many nightmares about something trying to kill me and bieng chased by them or it that after some time, every time i had a nightmare like that i instantly realized that i was dreaming and most of the time started Beating them or it up as a revenge against my unconsciousness for giving me so many nightmares. And after doing that for like the sixth time, i did not have nightmares for a little while after that, and i don't remember having a nightmare like that again after that, or atleast i don't remember right now. I think i was 7. Also now most of the time if i die in a dream, i see black and then i think: wait...if im dead how am i thinking right now? And then i get up, im most of the time lucid and the dream always just kinda goes into akward silence since it does not know what to do now like a stand up comedian forgetting Their Script. (if the death was by a fall of any kind then 100% of the time i get back up) and this also became to be because of overusage of something in a dream, in this case I often died of a fall in dreams. Edit: Wow i really thought i made this comment a year ago, i guess not.
The Gmod map, Dreams and Nightmares has received a fairly major update with a ton of stuff added, might be worth revisiting!
As someone who thinks the "off brand SCP universe backrooms lore" is violently boring, the kane pixel videos are pretty great. They are in my opinion the true backrooms lore, or at least what the backrooms should be.
You’re right, those echoes in the pool cathedral were singing a hymn. It was Schubert’s “Ave Maria” played in the muffled far distance with a ton of reverb.
Hearing human vocalizing in the backrooms is enough to put me on the defensive
The realism in this experience is something else, an entity that's very subtle in following would male this experience absolutely and truly horrifying
26:58
This moment right here. This is the moment that made me turn this fucking game off. Hell no. I was already drowning in the sensation of bottomless dread from how intangible yet familiar everything seemed to be but my heart stopped when I saw that thing take a quick peek at me before fading back into the shroud of darkness down that hallway. This moment will stay with me forever. It will surface in my worst nightmares.
That doorless set of window rooms (especially the one with closet, activated some ancient memories and fears when I was like 4 or 5 years old, that was.. bizarre.
"What is it that is so unnerving about high ceilings?" , The old man in you knows how bad the heat bill will be during the backrooms long winter season 😆
Not to mention how difficult it would be to clean.
Now this, THIS is what the backrooms should be, a place where you are alone but feel watched and not like there’s literally entity’s everywhere.
that moment with the choir music was just beautiful, amazing
26:55 look at the head poking out far away from upper corner💀
As for the sounds, I had the thought now- you hear sounds of reality. Picture backrooms of any other place, you can hear people and other things through the walls, you can hear the "formal space" while you are in backrooms of a mall or school.
So being on backrooms of reality you might hear the sounds of "formal reality", the outside.
Wether you enjoy the back rooms or not, the back rooms enjoy you. The style of narration with your cadence plus vocabulary choices make for an excellent viewing experience. Love your videos, I found you by looking at anemoiopolis (prob spelled wrong).
When I see the neighborhood, I think of a scene in monster house that is really creepy for a child. It shows a kid sleeping and a red light shinny into the room. But then a shadow hand that can move things appears, and just before it gets him, the kid wakes up.
Glad I’m not the only one who got Monster House vibes! What a classic movie.
23:00 That whole segment with the poolrooms and choir like ambient music was perfect, you are naturally defensive and distrust what the music is: a trap perhaps? But the more you listen to it the more you are reminded of places on earth, you almost have a foggy sensation cloud your mind, you wouldn’t mind staying here. But you choose to move away from the comforting music and scenery back into darkness and uneasy silence. It’s like getting out of bed when you are the most comfy, ripping the metaphorical bandaid off to explore and hopefully escape.
Also, I like the idea of Backrooms having "bioms" not a rigid transitional parts (like elevators).
It makes it feel more infinite with the only measure of you moving being the "biome" change- comming from the yellow back area to abandoned mall, the poolrooms bring like cave system that expands even more, connections between the bioms being blurry and odd- like sudden sofa or launge in a mine
i think we found it. the most realistic looking video game of all time. and the thing that makes this even better than AAA, is that there is actual effort. the subtle extra wobble the camera makes when climbing down the stairs, the incredibly realistic noise the sounds of footsteps make. all of this included with the sounds, lighting and very detailed textures makes this feel real. these details are what separates Indie from AAA. Or VR from computer. I think that no game will surpass the graphics this game has for at least 10 years or even more.
The HEAVY post processing hides a whole lot of visual artifacts that litter the world which is to this game's benefit. It does look realistic but when you play it and get up close to things the illusion breaks down fast thanks to the copious amounts of texture seams and low res assets.
I do agree it looks very good but I couldn't declare it the most 'realistic' looking video game of all time, I think the Vanishing of Ethan Carter looks better by a long shot.
36:03
you know, a lot of liminal space areas don't get me, but this one does, it's something about the high ceiling and the low walls, it reminds me of something like sky zone, but empty, there's no attractions, and the damp yellow walls with the florescent lighting, a mimicry of what it normally is, just sorta unerving
I really enjoyed this, but, I agree, the mall was very lacking, as well as other areas. The Complex: Expedition seems to have a lot more stuff, too. Thanks for sharing this.
Love the video! It's funny, I found out about this game after seeing this vid recommended to me after watching some of your other Gmod backrooms videos this past week, but I actually went and played it before coming back and watching this. And wouldn't you know it, you and I took the exact same path through! And in noticing this, your walkthrough confirmed something I had suspected during my own, that there are other elevators to other levels that we didn't take. Bad new for us, we have to play it again to see where they lead lmao!
Love the found footage aesthetic, think oddly kane and lynch 2 the best with this idea
45:23 - A fellow man of taste, I see
this is the last game i expected to receive an update. Shows that the devs have a lot of passion for this!
They’re even making a sequel
At 17:26 you mentioned trains, it just occured to me, I went there one time!
It's a holiday hotel in london iirc inside the trainstation..? Crowne plaza!! Just googled it and found it, no wonder that liminal space deeply brought back holiday feels.
You literally just opened up old memories of when I was like...6, holy crap. That's so weird, that that's even real. And the train noises make sense!! Because inside one of the train station terminals.
11:10 I felt immediate discomfort as you walked into the room. Something about that ramp leading up to the railing, it has no reason to exist, yet it does. Then it goes down to a set of pillars, their shape slightly distorted because of the camera effect. Unless something new shows up as I continue to watch, this is by far one of the most unsettling liminal space I think I've ever seen, at least to me personally.
Unrelated edit but I wanted to include, at 38:30, I actually had a dream very similar to this relatively recently. I have a poor relationship with my father, and in my dream he had a heart attack. When this happened, though, everything turned red. Almost the exact same colour in the video. When I looked out the kitchen window I could only see so far, because the combination of it being night and the deep red darkened the distance.
Edit II: 39:30 also reminds me of dreams that I've had, this time recurring. It wasn't super similar to this, but it has a couple connections. When I was younger both my parents would work at the same time frequently, so I went to live with my aunt a good bit of the time. This gave me a pretty good feel for her house, which made it a perfect candidate for these dreams. There would always be a little crawlspace above me, just high enough for me to pull myself up into. I would weave my way through the framework of the house until I reached a little area I claimed as mine. Nobody would ever question where I went, so I was free to spend as much time up there as I like. Despite me actually being at her house several times since these dreams started, only relatively recently did I realise that they were dreams. Not only that, but I didn't even realise it on my own. Someone had said something to me that made it hit me suddenly.
Final Edit as the outro plays out: The red neighbourhood bit, it didn't even dawn on me that I had a dream like that until you said something, and sorry if this didn't make perfect sense grammatically, I'm not great with English.
22:53 I am sure the choir playing is the song Ave Maria... it's just so fitting for this game!
The suburban area, especially the part with the houses inside of the tunnel, really feel like things you would see on a dark ride in a theme park for some reason.
2:15 after going and watch the same ten seconds three times, yes I did see it
I love seeing these liminal spaces because I haven't dreamed of any spaces like them that I can remember. It's eerie and intriguing to know so many people do share certain imagery. Anyone else's dreams almost entirely consist of alternate versions of your current life? Things are just slightly different, or sometimes major. Feels like I'm peaking through a window at a different version of myself.
you should check out into the radius, its basically stalker in vr but newer and polished, great video btw
Kids and their monsters. Everything needs a monster :(
Isn't more interesting an idea that Backrooms are like a passive organism, that mimics our surroundings, creating endless rooms? Waiting for living creatures to get caught by the glitch in reality or maybe by something more direct? Then just waiting untill you die from dehydration and hunger and your body starts decomposing. Maybe that's why the carpets are damp? Maybe it's covered with digestive juices? You know, like those carnivorous plants? :D
Do animals can get trapped in backrooms too? or they sense the glitches and don't fall into?
Yeah, even in the original post, the last sentence implying there were monsters walking around felt like an unnecessary addition.
@@Cyfrik honestly thought it was the cherry on top
I think it's so much more disturbing and interesting when you're alone for so long that you keep expecting some unseeable being will be around the next corner, and your brain starts forcing itself to look for this, slowly driving you into unexplainable horror and hyperventilation. And then right at the end, the character is so noxious and unstable and that is when the entity reveals itself. I don't know...the setting makes the monster creature scary, once you're used to them the effect starts to die except for a few exceptionally disturbing characters that would be unsettling in any setting. But that goofy tangled bacteria guy is just goofy. But something like an alien can be horrifying because you expect them to do something unimaginable to you in the coming moment, not just start running at you to punch you lol. But us writers, and game players can't process exactly what they might do, just the general cliches of meeting the unknown like convulsing on the floor while your eyes bleed out and heart stops. That seems to be the running thing. But there's this story and it took a completely different twist. You don't see what happens but the victim of whatever it is, is left contorted in the most gruesome ways imaginable, with their eyes gouged out and mouth agape. And later in the story the main 3 are left, and while sleeping, the other guy tells the main guy to wake up, told him he saw something in the landscape, saw something walking just past. It was him (referring to the guy sleeping 'Lenko') Novak and Tarkov both realizing aware of the situation began leaving. Just then Lenko asked "are you my friend?" I realized what was wrong with Lenko, his eyes were solid black. What are you!?
"We are..... everything" Lenko replied unnaturally. Novak screamed as its mouth opened far too large and bit down into Novaks neck engulfing his face."
I love the being in that story, and the atmosphere of it is phenomenal. It's on Dark Somniums channel titled "I know why we never returned to the moon". The horror element in it is unmatched. Two other stories are similar to that, "This is what we saw" #1, and "an astronaut is in my backyard" #2. Enjoy.
I guess I'm the odd one out in that I haven't dreamt of the backrooms. Closest was a dream about a goat going whaling.
This guys commentary sounds like an actual essay. Awesome.
18:20 i think this section is reminiscent of one of the MIB endings, where the world is shown to be like a microscopic cage in a larger "multiverse". I dont remember exacly what MIB is this ending, there is one where Tommy Lee Jones character opens a huge door and it is shown to be just a lock door in a much larger world.
You might like a game called "BEWARE". It takes place in a spooky post-apocalyptic looking environment. You're driving a car thru the wasteland while being stalked by someone. It has paranormal/anomalous things too.
Ngl, I kinda wish for you to try out Industria. It's like this Half-Life/BioShock inspired game where you end up in an abandoned city infested with robots in an alternative version of Earth.
The game isn't horror by any means. The entire story actually takes place during the day, but you'll be visiting many dimly lit areas while trying to survive... *Mostly* alone.
It's a short but very sweet experience.
AAA games should step up their realistic graphics.
It’s embarrassing that a indie dev could make such a realistic game.
Something I noticed in the game is that the mall sign had social media icons on it and other things that didn't exist during the time the game takes place.
By the way he talks it reminds me of big bang theory, not just the tone but also his vocabulary. I think I might subscribe because for some reason he draws me in just through talking.
The Complex: Found Footage> Subliminal
Id love the thought of the chair just… the small details like the carpet being wet. If the chair was also that slightly damp like a bench after a night of rain and just slightly uneven enough that you notice
Another really interesting found footage looking game it's one called: "Countryside 1999"
35 on a regular suburban street? what kind of crazy place is this?
the madness.
35.
It seems that the creator is inspired more by Kane Pixels take than the Wiki take on Backrooms... Which I approve.
The Kane Pixels approach has far more mystery to it and doesn't overexplain itself, encouraging you to engage with your own ideas of what might be further in. Sry, I just havr aversion to overexplanation and overexposure in cosmic horror stories
Other people have to have noticed this, but those machine noises he heard was the async door, right?
Those are sounds of the Threshold
I like relate to the poolrooms cause I've chilled in so many uncanny resort pools alone....peaceful but strange...
The weirdest part of this game is that you can wander around, you can walk, crouch, and do previously mentioned simultaneously. You can even run but you are unable to jump over obstacles such as low fences or metal barriers xD
I know this isn't game isn't technically kane pixels backrooms but I still like the hilarious idea that whatever sentient force is the backrooms environment itself just starts randomly spawning nonsensical caution tape just to fuck with Async XD
Shadow on the ground from the doorway dashes away when you get close at 35:34.
Nice playthrough though mate
At around 29:38 something peeks around a corner, right before he starts talking about the sconce!
Sorry but it's one of the lamps on the wall, still scared the crap outta me the first time though
@@CornusXBL Yeah, but it's there and then not, so where did the lamp go?
@@V0ID_X5 He moves to the left so the silhouette of the lamp on the opposite wall disappears into the shadow.
I've seen a fair bit of stuff about the backrooms, though I'm not an expert, so can someone tell me if people have delved into non-Euclidean spaces? From what I've seen, the geometry of these spaces, while odd, is still "sensible" and comprehensible. I've not see things like someone walking into a room that, from the outside, must be X size, but on the inside is far larger or smaller than X; to pick a basic example. I've wanted to see people play around with non-Euclidean spaces as a horror tool, and it'd blend seamlessly into the backrooms imo. I can even imagine this used as an escalation, where in "deeper layers", the rules governing the backrooms become more and more incomprehensible and maddening.
Yeah. Ive seen a fair amount of backrooms content with non-euclidean spaces.
@@Slipperyslab It's possible I have, but I'm not recalling it properly. Could you give me a couple of examples of things you've seen?
@@tommeakin1732 There are so many backrooms videos out there that they all kinda blend, but I remember videos from Dinnerbone 777, Kane Pixels, and Matt Studios including some non-euclidean spaces.
I think you might like the book "House of Leaves."
The story is multilayered, and one of the layers focuses on a scenario similar to what you're asking for.
@@Slipperyslab I meant the situations/scenarios not specifically where they came from, as I know I struggle to remember which vid is what myself lol ^^
Please please _please_ watch all of Kane Pixels' Backrooms videos to date. As the game draws heavy inspiration from it, a lot of the context, that is familiar to others who had watched it, is lost to you even on this second playthorugh.
its just eerily calm and feels nostalgic
Thinking about it now, I do remember having some dreams that might be considered liminal.
I always dreamt of my grandparents apartment being in a giant apartment complex, far larger than it actually is. not only that, but I also quite clearly remember how in my dreams the only way up was up a narrow, broken flight of stairs with no railings. I don't remember why I dreamt of climbing them, I remember them being quite scary, yet I do not know why I dreamt of climbing them.
I also remember some kind of warped version of my home's family room. the ceiling is miles high and the walls are like jelly. wiggling and stuff.
purple light or vision I dunno.
and then there's the pyramid hotel thing.
imagine a new york apartment. black walls. egypt theme or somethin idk. red carpet.
a hotel, only it was in a big black pyramid.
a pyramid in the middle of a desolate wasteland. just a black barren wasteland. dead trees.
quite a scary dream
oddly enough. these liminal dreams always had my family in them. perhaps I am afraid of losing them or being without them.
like a child in a mall whose lost their parents.
that sort of terror.
I've always had nightmare of people I guess.
dreams where I am constantly trying to prevent people, who I know are smart enough to be safe, from doing dangerous things. like drinking something that is obviously poison, getting into something unsafe, or going up to some _thing_ that'll kill them.
Something about that has always terrified me.
40:54 I see you. I appreciate that.
the suburban home in red glow could be because of light streaming in through the eyelids, causing the dream-image of a suburban area to combine with the actual visual input of the morning sunlight dyed red.
Always a pleasant evening when the Librarian uploads.
Yet again I watch another video of this game and find things I didn't notice when I played but also note that you didn't see all the things I did. Like you didn't find the empty grocery store frozen section or the "basement at a friend's house" liminal space either.
haha, "trying to figure out where I'm supposed to go." to be fair, you're not SUPPOSED to BE there
17:34 if you want an explanation for this noise you can watch kane pixels' backrooms series as this game is the closest resemblance of his series
Edit: i just reached the end of the video and oh, guess other people have been recommending it too haha
There is no else I’d rather watch play this game
11:03 “no its just more backrooms”
This is THE backrooms game in my mind for two reasons, it's not a monster maze, and it has verticality! This alone makes it the best, but noooo, it doesn't just stop there, it also has multiple levels that look just as good as the first. And it's free. No competition, period.