You Are The Knockoff Backrooms

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Project Overview

This is a small game I made in collaboration with

a friend over the course of July 7 and 8th 2023 for the

Game Maker’s Toolkit Game Jam using

Unreal Engine 5.

The theme for the Game Jam was "Roles Reversed",

which we were free to interpret in any way possible.

Since both of us are fans of liminal spaces and

liminal horror, we made a roll reversal game of

that genre.

The two of us collaborated on the concept, then my teammate did the art while I built the game and designed the levels.

Fitting The Theme

Liminal space games usually revolve around the player getting trapped in an endless liminal world and having to escape before they go mad or die. We inverted this concept by making a game where the player takes on the role of the liminal space itself, and instead of trying to trap people in the liminal space it tries to kick them out.

The player plays as a moving wall that can traverse the liminal space by clicking on the ground to move. This wall was made by simply attaching an elongated cube with a custom texture to the default Unreal point and click controller, letting me quickly set up a player avatar without spending our limited time on it.

The Player in Health Pack Form

The Player in Wall Form

Liminal Space Shape-Shifting Action Game
July 2023
Unreal Engine 5
PC
Made With a Team of 2
My Roles on Team
- Programmer
- Systems Designer
- Narrative Designer

Working Within Limitations

Original ideas for the player controlling a larger chunk of the environment were tabled as we needed to work within the time constraints and went with what we could to make an interesting game.

The primary goal of the game is to knock wandering explorers into the exit. Since the two-day time limit meant we didn’t have time to create high quality custom 3D models, I came up with the idea of using 2D images to create a 2.5D aesthetic.

Player Moving through the World

Player in Health Pack Form Being Chased by Explorers, All in 2.5D Art

Gameplay

The player-controlled wall can knock the explorers into the exit by pushing or spinning. The main goal of the game is to push all the explorers into the exit.

Player Luring an Explorer In Then Knocking them Through The Exit

Player Swapping Between Wall and Heath Pack Form

If the explorers are too far away from the exit, the player also has the option of shifting from a wall into a health pack. This will cause the explorers to chase the player if they can see them. If they catch the player, it is game over. However, if the player can lure them near the exit and turn back into a wall, they can trick the explorers into being knocked through.

The explorers can only see in a certain direction. In the first builds, it was hard to tell where they were facing, which made the game confusing. To fix this issue, I added a flashlight glow to the explorers that points the way they are facing. This change also came with the bonus of adding more light to the dark levels.

Design Choices

There are 4 levels, each designed to look like liminal spaces with intentional glitches and misplaced features to give the player the feeling they are in a broken liminal world.

Player Luring Multiple Explorers In Health Pack Form

Glitch the Player Can Find

Some Walls Hidden Outside the Bounds

Pipes with Mysterious Pink Fluid