We are inching closer to Halloween, so what better time than to talk about something creepy like The Backrooms?
Last year, Nintendo sued PocketPair, the makers of Palworld. The lawsuit alleged that Palworld violated Nintendo patents. The lawsuit was controversial for a whole variety of obvious reasons. One of those reasons was that it attempted to claim that a basic video game mechanic could be patented – specifically, the mechanic of throwing a ball object. Nintendo, rightfully, earned a heck of a lot of heat over their moves to try and destroy Palworld, though this was far from the first time a company tried to patent a basic game mechanic.
While video game patents are often stupid, there is one concept that is decidedly the polar opposite of patenting a game mechanic or basic concept: The Backrooms. This is something I’ve been meaning to discuss for a while, but since we are close to Halloween, it made sense to discuss this now.
For those that don’t know, The Backrooms is a concept that has some origins in video game concepts. In 2019, there was a 4Chan thread talking about images of places that just seem off. In that image, someone posted this image:
Initially, the origins of this image was unclear, but it would later be discovered that this image was actually an old furniture store being renovated into a HobbyTown – a decidedly less than creepy backstory which makes the image less creepy looking, though with the context removed, it does give off a creepy vibe.
At any rate, things just took off from there. A whole Wiki was created, allowing anyone to contribute to the lore of The Backrooms. The basic concept is that the real world is classified as “The Frontrooms”. Meanwhile, concepts that didn’t quite make it to the real world get pushed to “The Backrooms”, off limits to real life. However, something is changing and holes started forming in reality, allowing passage into The Backrooms. This is through a video game concept known as “noclipping” – a term that basically means that a mesh/object can pass through another unobstructed. Things like a square on the floor can suddenly be a hole into The Backrooms despite it appearing to be solid ground.
So, the odd person here and there started “noclipping” from reality and into The Backrooms. Obviously, this is bad because you are basically falling into a labyrinth with no clear way of getting back to reality. The Backrooms have numerous levels, extending all the way up to at least level 9,223,372,036,854,775,807 and all of the way down to -9,223,372,036,854,775,807. The level featured in the original image that started all of this is known as “level 0”. Other levels include a massive parking garage, an abandoned office, and a series of pools.
Generally speaking, each level has an aesthetic of being a liminal space. This means, among other things, that the space is generally appearing to be eerie or surreal, appearing in an “in between” state. What’s more, these spaces are generally giving the appearance of being abandoned as well. This, naturally, varies from level to level. Liminal spaces are known to also be a theme for people’s dreams, which could theoretically make such spaces feel more uncanny as well. For some people, it’s not necessarily an unfamiliar experience to be in a liminal space even if one may not remember being in one before. At any rate, each level is given classification based on different criteria.
Threat level is generally based on what physical risks are imposed on those who travel there. A Threat Index Level of 0 indicates that the level is safe to explore. There are no known poisonous things appearing there and nothing that will personally threaten you. Some levels will have something known as “entities” which are monsters that can roam a number of these levels. Entities can be anything from friendly and harmless to monsters that will attack and kill you on sight. This, for obvious reasons, impacts the Threat Index Level.
In addition to the threat level is the stability assessment. This means whether or not the level itself is, well, stable. For instance, Level 0, while generally safe, is also classified as unstable. This is because, at random points, the configuration of the maze changes. So, you could be walking down a corridor, then turn a corner to see another corridor, but when you turn back, you’ll realize that the layout changed and you are immediately lost with no obvious way of getting back – if it’s even possible at all. As a result, it is extremely easy to get lost in a number of these levels because things like that can happen.
Contributing to the popularity of The Backrooms is a known VFX artist, Kane Pixels. Kane Pixels has a series of video’s that offers some visual representations of what it’s like to explore The Backrooms. The video’s utilizes a late 1980’s to early 1990’s VHS effect to help mask geometry and texture imperfections – a technique that is similarly used by earlier video games to help mask the comparatively primitive performance capabilities of hardware back in the day. So, if the hardware is unable to handle longer draw distances, fog is employed to mask this. Great examples of this are Silent Hill and Turok. Because of the use of filtering, your mind tends to fill in the blanks, making the footage seem more real than what would otherwise be possible.
Additional lore was built such as various organizations associated with The Backrooms. This includes Async, M.E.G and many others. There’s plenty of expanded lore to be had with different groups at the very least.
So, it comes as little surprise that a concept, utilizing so many game concepts, sparked, well, games. One early example is The Backrooms Game, but this quickly expanded to include other games like Escape the Backrooms, The Backrooms 1998, and The Backrooms: Lost Tape. Really, search around on Steam and you’ll find lots of Backrooms games – some with very similar names of course.
Of course, one thing to note is that such a thing exists in the first place. Different games made by different people with similar names and concepts. The blueprints are all openly available for anyone to use. All it takes is someone to put together something with similar concepts and, boom, you have a game. No one is going to be running around claiming to have a patent, trademark, or copyright on the concept of The Backrooms. It’s all basically an open source concept for anyone to use and follow.
Over the last couple of years, this contributed to a boom in liminal space exploration games. A number of which were based on The Backrooms while others forged out on their own to create their own style of game. What’s more, other creators could simply continue creating video’s on The Backrooms. One example is Broogli.
From an exclusive rights perspective, traditional game developers might look at this and say that this lack of control of the intellectual property should be the death knell of the concept itself. Yet, this sort of thing continues to live on with people producing more content. The games can often be dirt cheap or even free, the video content is frequently free to view online, and information is also freely available as well. The open nature of The Backrooms is generally the biggest strength for its longevity. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this is that all of this was sparked by a single random picture posted more than 5 years ago. It’s certainly a situation that is a lot better than the Pokemon vs Palworld controversy, that’s for sure.
