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Backrooms: Escape Together

A Multiplayer Co-Op Survival Horror Game

Date: May 25' to October 25'

Team Size: 6

Role: Game Designer

Engine: Unreal Engine 5

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Project Overview

Backrooms: Escape Together is a cooperative survival horror game set within the unsettling, liminal spaces of the Backrooms mythos. Players must work together to survive procedurally generated levels, solve environmental puzzles, and manage scarce resources—all while evading hostile entities unique to each level.

As a Game Designer, I’ve contributed heavily to both core level development and gameplay systems—working across procedural generation, replicated multplayer mechanics, and scripted encounters using Blueprints and C++.

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Current Levels

Upon joining the team, the game featured 10 core levels:

• Level 0 – The Lobby
• Level 1 – Habitable Zone
• Level 2 – Pipe Dreams
• Level 3 – Electrical Station
• Level 4 – Abandoned Office
• Level 6 – Lights Out
• Level 37 – Pool Rooms
• Level ! – Run
• Level Fun
• The Hub

Each level is designed to provide a distinct player experience—some prioritize exploration and calm, while others challenge players with tense stealth, puzzle-solving, and sanity management.

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Level 37: Procedural Slides

Level 37 - "The Poolrooms" is an infinite series of connecting pools. This level is non-hostile, and its all about exploring your environment. In order to enhance this level, I created custom, procedural slides.

This was done with a combination of Unreals PCG System, Splines, and Properitery Procedural Generation used for the level. The goal is to prompt curiosity and wonder in the player, and to reward their exploration with visual interest.

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Real Time Gameplay Recording

To expand the existing in-game camera mechanic, Backrooms: Escape Together integrates a new real-time recording system that lets players capture MP4 footage directly from gameplay — including in-game audio and voice chat. The goal was to evolve the camera from a purely visual prop into a practical, player-driven recording tool that feels native to the core experience.

Design Goals

• Extend the existing camera system without disrupting established controls or player flow.
• Treat recording as a natural player ability rather than a separate UI option.
• Keep encoding performance lightweight and stable for multiplayer environments.
• Maintain a clean, accessible interface for both designers and players.

System Overview

The feature was implemented using FFmpeg for runtime encoding and Unreal’s Gameplay Ability System (GAS) for player interaction logic.
Together, these systems allow for fully in-engine video capture that’s fast, responsive, and consistent with the game’s interaction framework.

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FFmpeg Integration

• Real-Time Encoding:
  Gameplay frames and audio are passed into FFmpeg via pipe streams for on-the-fly compression. This avoids temporary file writes and minimizes disk overhead.
• Threaded Operation:
  Encoding runs on dedicated worker threads, allowing gameplay logic and input to remain unaffected.
• Performance Balancing:
  Resolution and bitrate are automatically tuned to maintain smooth frame pacing, ensuring capture feels invisible to the player.
• Output Format:
  Recordings are saved as MP4 files using H.264 video and AAC audio for broad compatibility and shareability.

Gameplay Ability Integration

Recording is treated like any other gameplay action — handled through the Gameplay Ability System.
This ensures consistency in multiplayer behavior, input handling, and UI feedback.

• Activation & Cooldown:
  Players start and stop recording through contextual input tied to their held camera item.
• Network Awareness:
  Recording states replicate across clients, ensuring proper feedback and synchronized states in co-op play.

Audio Capture

• Diegetic Capture:
  Only in-world sounds and proximity voice chat are recorded, maintaining immersion and clarity.
• Stream Synchronization:
  FFmpeg’s built-in muxing merges frame and audio streams, producing consistent, properly timed output.

Performance & Collaboration

• Low Overhead Design:
  Recording is threaded and buffered to maintain sub-3ms encode overhead on target hardware.
• Blueprint Accessibility:
  Created macros and utility nodes so non-programmers could add recording triggers (for example, auto-recording key moments).
• Iterative Design:
  Worked closely with engineers to profile encoding performance and refine the player-facing experience to feel as seamless as possible.

This addition turned a simple visual camera into a functional recording device — a small but significant design step that improved usability, replayability, and player expression while maintaining stable performance and consistent interaction patterns.

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Community Integration

We maintain an active dialogue with our 80,000+ member Discord, which has proven essential to understanding player expectations. Their insights help shape how levels are designed, what mechanics to prioritize, and how horror is best delivered in multiplayer environments. Come Say Hi!

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Reflection

Working on Backrooms: Escape Together has pushed me further than any project to date. It’s deepened my understanding of agile production, Unreal Engine systems, and how to marry technical design with player-first thinking.

As we continue to grow the game, I’m excited (and a little scared) to see what horrifying level comes next.

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