Backrooms Cycle Reviews

While still in early access, this game is fantastic. I’ve played it across a couple iterations as the game has grown, and have found myself lost and enthralled in the environment and gameplay. I look forward to the final release, but I’m also looking forward to exploring the areas of this game I haven’t gotten to yet! So excited for this one

Game's great, but needs it's share of polish. Some stuff I'd like to see is a save system for the story of the game, that way it's not a total wipe every death/restart of the game, and the only thing, otherwise I'm fine with how unforgiving everything else is to be honest. The other major gripe I have is the fact that some entities auto track you to instantly kill you, which more or less ruins the whole game if there's no sense of survivability. Like how the smiley entity will track you before you even enter it's area and auto kill you, essentially blocking a huge area of the game with no means of surviving the encounter with it (the flares do literally nothing which I imagine are supposed to directly counter it). As well as the massive ball in its own area, if it's in your way and you have 0 speed upgrades, you're as good as dead and might as well re-roll your spawn so that you have a chance. Otherwise the rest of the game mechanics just need polishing (locker DOES NOT save anything you put into it, which would be my first priority) and whatnot. Best of luck to the devs!

Pretty alright, it's a little early to tell how this could turn out but it has a lot of breathing room to improve, good potential and good variation of game mechanics. : )

Probably the first backrooms game I have ever disliked so far....Mainly when creating a lobby, you are spawned in automatically to Level 0. With no items, and all scenic routes rarely have loot. You will see random crates with just random trash items or a few flare items that you may only use in the game 1-2x. I like the idea that you're able to go to the pool rooms to talk to some characters that have some meaningful story/quests. And, slides to enter into different levels. But, something is lacking in the game-play. I understand this is early access. Just the advertisement of this game is almost like it is a hype train than what it is worth. Definitely not 10bucks, more so should be around maybe 5bucks? If anyone likes exploring games, then this is what the product stands for. Its not doing puzzles, fighting, or any of the sorts advertised.

I tried to stream this and it's using 70-90% of my GPU usage. What is happening and why is this so un-optimized? This was impossible to stream as it dropped stream frames down to like 5 frames. Whack.

the melee combat in this game is horrible especially when you can't find a gun and have to kill the bugs crawling around the floor for example if I am getting rushed by one of them I have to hold down the left mouse button to kill it all while it is 10x faster than you plus it does its melee attacks 100x faster than you also the inventory system is pretty bad too you have to click and drag each item to its slot to equip it no double click to auto equip gun to slot plus if you are looting their is no quick way to get stuff you have to drag every item also why is there a wishlist the Backrooms Cycle when I start up the game even though I purchased it? lol

Solid game, fun dynamic, easy to understand, looking forward to further updates, great work from the creators.

i gave it a few chances, its too much of a janky mess to get enjoyment out of it. it made me frustrated the whole time i played it. its like the dev never seen how a game inventory works before, you cant access the options menu from in game, and if you try to back out to the main menu, the game soft crashes and you have to alt+f4 to close and restart it. there are no graphics options and there are some translation issues. too much jank, no idea where all the positive reviews are coming from tbh.

[b] Review [/b] 3 / 100 - too early for Early Access. A backrooms dungeon crawler, basic 3 tier crafting system, with only a handful of weapons and quests. There really is not all that much here, at this point in development you are paying to have the game made. The main game loop has you try to gather loot and skill points, and if you die, you'll get another chance "cycle" but minus whatever skill points or loot you gathered. Loot, do quest, find slide, store loot, start next quest, find next slide. . . and then you can loot, do quest, find slide, store loot, start next quest, find next slide. . . ya. There are some interesting things here, it's the main reason I pulled the trigger on the buy, but I've been burn by these (Pre-)Alpha/Beta Games so many times. I don't plan on putting more then 2hrs into this game, so I could potentially get a refund if things go south; but the Devs have already patched the game and seem take feedback to heart, so it may indeed be more then a shameless asset flip that many of these backroom games are. [Review END] [b] Dev Feedback [/b] [b] Since the Devs are asking for feed back, allow me to waste a bit of their time: [/b] The game reminds me of something like Terraria, specifically a significant portion of the players who would have a 'home world' that housed their base and then they would generate an 'explore world' to. . . well. . . explore for loot/fun. Since all generated worlds and characters are separate, you could delete worlds and still keep any items in your character's inventory. Eventually a new game released, Starbound, which lets you hop between planets in a whole galaxy. In that game, your ship acts as a main base, traveling between planets to store all your loot. Your game, as it is now, has the potential to fill that particular niche. It is something no other backrooms game has done yet, or at least not well, and I think it can work with (and even compliment) the current story driven shooter game you are going for. [b] Main Loop: [/b] I think your MAIN LOOP should be a " Loot 'em Up " and/or " Looter Shooter "; where you move between levels to loot them, just to return back to your 'base level' where you can build up infrastructure or craft equipment with various resources. At first I thought your game was like this, since the Henry Supply Run quest kinda hinted it: I thought that the blocked off areas of the poolroom would be unlocked with supplies we gathered. Turns out, everything unlocks after completing that quest +1 cycle. It doesn't have to be the Poolrooms specifically, in fact it seems from some dialogue that you'll abandon the area eventually (but I only got up to the turtle quest 2hrs in). Point is: I think your Main Loop, gameplay-wise, should revolve around trying to gather resources to build up a 'saferoom'. It should be either safe or semi-safe, ideally being raided from time-to-time. Each 'cycle' you try to find NPCs, equipment (loot, items, whatever), and crafting supplies which can be used to build various structures (like shops or stations) for you or NPCs to use. [b] Story: [/b] I don't know why you want one. I've noticed a trend where >.> open world survival horror games <.< will try to add in a story, often to their own detriment: Zomboid, Sons of The Forest, etc. So far it just seems like a romp through the backrooms. There are some multidimensional shenanigans, the UI hints at M.E.G, and the fact all the characters have the same suit maybe implies some other organization is making plays in the backrooms. . . Maybe? IDK. It's early, there is no story and I don't think that one should even exist for this type of game. If it is very lite, like a final reveal of your true identity, then it could work out. [b] Gameplay: [/b] Here is a list of things I think your game needs. Biomes. Here me out, levels need biomes. . . If you add in safe levels, then players will just stay and loot them regardless of their % chances. So, the only levels you can add to the game have to be hostile levels. Otherwise there are no consequences for looting non-hostile levels. Best you can do is add a constant sanity drain to simulate paranoia, but if the area can be looted without any hostile threats then it's still better to keep looting. But biomes, well, that could be anything anywhere. Here is a good example I played before, "Enter The Backrooms" which is currently on Steam. You travel through the Backrooms but part of the level will generate as the Manila Rooms. Its not a different level you enter, it is within the same instance of the level. . . like a biome. The Backrooms (or yellowrooms as called in-game) would be the main environment, but smaller sections of the level generate as different levels. This way you could pair-up safer and even more dangerous levels together, by tying them in as 'sub-levels' to your various 'main levels'. The only issue is, you'll have to up-scale the world generation. Based on what I saw in your unpublished promo video on discord, the levels are quite small and seem to actually end; your level design is much more akin to a Dungeon Crawl or Rouge-Like, nothing close to either the near infinite procedural world exploration or the highly scripted horror scenario other creators go for. It's an interesting niche between these two common backroom design choices, you want the feeling of the infinite (which more scripted backroom games lose out on) but the levels have to be small enough that players won't miss out on story elements (which large backrooms exploration games can't have). It is an interesting concept, backroom dungeons, but I don't know if this is a genuine design choice or if you are forced to do this because putting a story into this game is holding your back. This end take is basing off No-Clip Videos showing your level design in that unpublished promo video on discord. More loot, it is what it is, this type of game NEEDS all kinds of weapons, items, and monsters that change up the gameplay moment-to-moment. I suggest you lean into the whole dungeon crawl rouge-like, design wise you are already there so have the gameplay back it up. Also, why have you disguised your crafting system as a trading system? Replace the Trader with a Workbench, if you want a real trading system then you'll need make a currency. Meh, use coins, have pocket change be the currency of the backrooms. Just have Henry pull double duty crafting (since he does it anyway) and have the Trader actually trade items for coins or some other currency. [b] RPG [/b] Dying has you lose all your items (good, that's fine) and skill points (no). . . well, unless you use the Disk Anomaly equipment. . . so that's all I use, because otherwise all progress in this game is purely forced to rest on your lackluster crafting system (i.e. you can store crafting material, so that's the only place you can make progress). Add in real RPG elements into this game, let players pick skills and keep them. You start weak, but each cycle you should be able to grow. Because, as of now, the real game doesn't start until your find a Gun and the Disk item. Guns let you do combat, Disks let you retain skills. Sure, you can grow by just getting killed until you figure out the game. That's fine, but if that's your goal then you need to remove the Disk item because it is sending mixed message. [Feedback END]

for the love of god let us turn the water graphics down. i don't want my game to run like that. EDIT: one day later and they added it. responsive, caring devs, and the game is interesting too. get it :)