Backrooms: Wit's End News

[p]Hi everyone! This is the first development roadmap update, where I’ll go over what’s next on the list and what you can expect in the coming months.[/p][p]I plan to post updates like this regularly so you can stay informed about what’s being worked on. There’s always a lot to tackle, so I’ll focus on explaining why certain areas are being prioritized, whether due to importance, player impact, or quick wins that improve the experience right away.[/p][p]Thank you to everyone who joined the Early Access so far! I’ve already received a ton of valuable feedback, and some design issues have come to light that I want to address before moving forward with new content and levels.[/p][p][/p][p]After watching many playthroughs, I noticed a consistent problem: players often don’t understand the non-linear structure of the levels. A lot of people leave the game thinking they’ve seen everything, even when several levels were still undiscovered, usually because they unknowingly took an alternate path and skipped a core level.[/p][p]I thought the Journal would be enough to show players when they were missing content and where to look for extra exits, but most players were overlooking it.[/p][p]I got the idea of making the game this way after seeing how the Backrooms wikis are laid out, and how the setting is explained with the prevalent feature of levels having many entrances and exits, and how other games dont use this fact, powered also by procedurally generated levels to leverage replayability of levels.[/p][p]Seems like my assumption was wrong about how much this is a known fact, and seems like only hardcode backrooms fans appreciated this mechanic, but most people completely missed it and the result is a negative experience.[/p][p]I'm still debating if this is still an interesting idea or if the normal linear level progression is what players expect and want, so I would love to hear more feedback on this![/p][p]I have ideas to improve this with better onboarding, more in game hints and a new objective to look for so you have a reason to try to explore at least most levels, or at least not end up closing the game thinking that was everything.[/p][p]Also general game mechanics onboarding and accessibility can be improved a lot.[/p][p][/p][p]These issues are on me, I didn’t gather enough early feedback from a broader audience. Most of the early players were already familiar with Backrooms lore, so I wasn’t able to catch this problem early.[/p][p]I have plans to address this, and it’s my top priority moving forward. I’m still listening closely to feedback, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on this issue.[/p][p][/p][p]Here’s the list of changes and improvements you can expect in the coming months. I won’t begin working on new levels until these issues are addressed and the overall experience is more polished. I also want to add a few features that didn’t make it into the initial release, so once I move on to the next level, the core game is in a solid state to build on.[/p][h3]Top priority:[/h3]

• [p]Improved Onboarding on Level Navigation[/p]
  • [p]More in game hints[/p]
  • [p]In game navigation map[/p]
  • [p]New game start cinematic to explain the setting[/p]
  • [p]New soft ending objective[/p]
  • [p]Improved level navigation to avoid accidental dead ends[/p]
• [p]Improved general First Time User Experience[/p]
• [p]Improve Level 0 Puzzle[/p]
  • [p]Also some Level 0 Enviroment enhancements are planned[/p]
• [p]Accesibility features (Disable motion blur, camera shake, adjustable fov, and other settings)[/p]

[h3]Also planned:[/h3]

• [p]Inventory rework[/p]
  • [p]Drop items feature[/p]
• [p]Lobby Browser[/p][p][/p]

[p]Hopefully I can work through the points above quickly so I can move on to new levels, something the game is currently a bit short on.[/p][p]The original plan for the 0.6 Update was to include three new levels: Level 3, Level 4, and Level 1.01. But instead of delaying the update until all of them are finished, I’ll work on them one at a time and release each level as soon as it’s ready, starting with Level 3. You will know more about this once I start its development.[/p][p][/p][p]Thanks for reading and for joining the Early Access phase of the game. Let me know what you think about these plans, and I hope you stick around for the upcoming updates![/p][p][/p][p]As you know, most of these topics can be tracked on the Development Roadmap Trello, I will keep it updated.[/p][p][/p][p] - Augusto[/p]

[p]Hey everyone, another small patch I wanted to push before the weekend ends. This one focuses on some environment updates, tweaks to the ending popup based on feedback, and a few balance changes I’d like to test regarding sanity loss when witnessing a player kill and sanity recovery rates from items.[/p][p][/p][p]The ending popup now shows how many levels you haven’t explored yet, in case players reach the ending without seeing all levels due to alternate paths and similar factors.[/p][p][/p][p]I’ll post a longer update next week with a rough roadmap of upcoming features and improvements, I want to finish polishing the remaining content and add some accessibility settings that I’ve already received feedback on.[/p][p][/p][p]Thanks for all the feedback you’re sending my way. I’m noting everything down, and I’ll get to it all eventually.[/p][p][/p][h3]Full patch notes:[/h3]

• [p]Sanity changes:[/p]
  • [p]Almond water Sanity recovery:[/p][p][c]8+(20%missingSanity) -> 6+(20%missingSanity)[/c] (just decreased a bit base value)[/p]
  • [p]Medkit Sanity recovery: [c]10 -> 8[/c][/p]
  • [p]Sanity loss on kill seen close: [c]10 -> 15[/c][/p]
  • [p]Sanity loss on kill seen far: [c]5 -> 8[/c][/p]
• [p]Added more props and lockers to Level 1 hallways[/p]
• [p]Localized hint to Level 188 in Level 1[/p]
• [p]Improved ending statement[/p]
• [p]Tweaked a bit Level 2 generation, now higher chance of "dark path left" tile[/p]

[p]Hey everyone, this is the first patch since the early access release![/p][p]I'm keeping an eye on feedback and addressing issues as they come in.[/p][p]So far there are no critical bugs, but I’ve already made several tweaks based on player reports. If you run into anything or have feedback, feel free to let me know.

The main update in this patch is for the alternate exit from Level 1 → Level 188. I noticed players were having trouble finding it and were missing the level entirely. To help with that, I added a fallen explorer with a hint, and improved visibility by adding exit signs once the exit spawns. I’ve also added similar visibility improvements to the exits in Level 0.[/p][p]Skinstealers on Level 1 have also been adjusted, their respawn time is now longer and their passive time is shorter. Analytics showed they were a bit too overwhelming.[/p][p][/p][p]Full patch notes:[/p]

• [p]Added Hint on Level 1 to help find exit to Level 188 [/p]
• [p]Added Exit signs to Level 0, Level 0.7, Level 0.87 main exits, and Level 1 -> Level 188 exit.[/p]
• [p]Added timeout for deceiving door for Level 0 and its sublevels.[/p]
• [p]Reduced a bit Level 0.7 base size [c]28 -> 26[/c][/p]
• [p]Tweaked a bit Level 1 enviroment, fixed some colliders and improved optimization[/p]
• [p]Skinstealers: lowered passive time, lowered passive time on respawn, increased respawn cooldown[/p]
• [p]Made Level 1 electric fuze puzzle bigger and closer to the camera[/p]
• [p]Decreased item spawn rate a bit[/p]

[p]After years of on-and-off development while juggling my full-time job, Backrooms: Wit's End is now available on Steam Early Access. [/p][p][/p][p]I hope you enjoy the current state of the game. It’s fully playable, includes most core features, and offers a solid starting set of levels. I’m continuing development immediately to add some smaller features and details I couldn’t finish in time, and polishing some rough spots that were left out, before moving on to the next set of levels. (I will write a more in-depth development roadmap in the next week)[/p][p][/p][p]The last few months were intense, and I had to leave some content out of the release simply due to lack of time, but I didn’t want to delay the launch any further.[/p][p][/p][p]I have big plans for this project. My goal is to create a more dynamic Backrooms experience: with a focus on procedural levels and multiple exits per level so players don’t feel like they’re always following the same linear path as everyone else.[/p][p]To make that vision work, I need more content, and that’s what I’ll be focusing on next.[/p][p]I want to add many more levels, entities, and features. It’ll just take time. In the meantime, you can be part of this journey by sharing feedback and helping me catch any bugs that slipped through. (you can check the development roadmap here)[/p][p][/p][p]I’m happy with the current state of the game and how its shaping up for the future. The Demo brought in a lot of valuable feedback, and I’ve already implemented several changes based on the issues players found. I also loved watching the playthroughs across social media and reading all the comments.[/p][p]If you stream or upload a gameplay video, I’ll definitely watch it, I watch every single one.[/p][p][/p][p]I want to thank my friends who helped test the game and gave me valuable early feedback since the very first multiplayer builds. I couldn’t have reached this point without their support.[/p][p][/p][p]Hope you enjoy the game![/p][p][/p][p]– Augusto[/p]

[h2]Demo Patch v0.4.4.1[/h2][p][/p][p]Thanks to everyone that played the demo so far! I'm really happy with the results and got a lot of good feedback so far.

I want to bring up something while the demo is still available and keep an eye on how it evolves: level length consistency.[/p][p]I’ve seen different playthroughs; some where players took quite a while to find all the keys and the exit, and others where they completed both main levels in under 10 minutes.[/p][p]This amount of variation between playthrough lengths was not nice so I improved a bit the algorithm placing keys and the door in Level 0 (and its sublevels) to take spacing better into account.[/p][p]There are more things I want to do, also I would like to improve Level 0 puzzle further (instead of just finding 3 keys) to something more engaging, but for now this improvement should help.[/p][p][/p][p]There were many changes to difficulty and how it changes gameplay to list them, but there is a new difficulty selector when you start a new game so you can read all the details there.[/p][p][/p][h3]Added:[/h3]

• [p]Improved consistency of Level 0 (and sublevels) keys and exit spacing.[/p]
• [p]Difficulty rework[/p]
• [p]Added Difficulty selector to starting new game flows[/p]

[h3]Fixes and tweaks:[/h3]

• [p]Revive hints, lowered revive time, improved player kill seen post processing effect[/p]
• [p]Phone ring now attracts entitiies[/p]
• [p]Added subtle sound cue to hidden Level 0 exit.[/p]
• [p]Various small bug fixes and stability improvements[/p]

[p]
Remember that the demo will be available until November 25th, a day before the game releases in Early Access.[/p][p]
If you got feedback or want to share a bug report, you can do so and get more info on how to help with log files in the following thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2419010/discussions/0/597413522044021445/
[/p][p]There are some issues with Multiplayer on China, I added a text on the multiplayer lobby regarding this that links to this discussion thread: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2419010/discussions/0/597413522044018193/[/p]