Backrooms: The Last Exit

Backrooms

Backrooms is a standalone horror-exploration mod for NeoForge 1.21.1 that drops you into seventeen connected levels of liminal spaces, from endless yellow offices to a polar station, a night village and a pizzeria that never closes. Every level has its own rules, creatures, puzzles and ways out, and most of them can kill you.

From addon to standalone mod

Backrooms began as an addon for my horror mod Ghost Phone and relied on its classes and creatures. Since version 0.26.0 it is a fully independent mod: Ghost Phone is no longer required, and updates to Ghost Phone no longer affect it. Jason, the Priest of the Box, the traps and the whole Vkusno – i vsyo! cafe were ported over under their own backrooms:* ids, so both mods can be installed together without conflicts. The only remaining link is optional: if Ghost Phone is installed, its cafe works as the entrance, exactly as before.

Getting in

The entrance is a cafe called Vkusno – i vsyo! ("Tasty – and That's It!").

• Through the wall. Keep pushing against a wall of the cafe. Eventually you get stuck, glitch, slide into the wall and come out in the Backrooms.
• Through the floor. Walk around long enough and the floor crumbles under you.
• Without Ghost Phone, an abandoned cafe generates near villages. Talk to Clark on the terrace, pay 300 emeralds, and a construction crew restores it in about half a day.

The way back is just as strange: a fire-exit door marked EXIT, or the same wall you came through.

The cafe itself

The restored cafe is a working place, not just a doorway.

• Touchscreen kiosks, cashiers, an order screen and 14 dishes and drinks, payable by card or emeralds.
• Hireable staff: cashiers, cooks at the fryer and grill, and a manager.
• A full kitchen with fridges, sink and cabinets, plus a restroom, and seating you can actually sit on.
• Villagers walk in, order, sit, eat and chat, surprised by the new place and its technology.
• Every building is built from detailed multi-part models.

Seventeen levels

• Level 0 – Yellow Rooms: endless rooms, buzzing lamps, a different layout in every world
• Level 1 – Parking: dark concrete garage, abandoned cars, stairwells
• Level 2 – Lake: a summer camp, infected counselors, and Jason
• Level 3 – Supermarket: aisles after closing time
• Level 4 – Pools: tiled water halls
• Level 5 – Party: a party that does not end
• Level 6 – Night Village: identical houses in fog, three map scraps, the Priest of the Box
• Level 7 – Terminal: an airport and a last flight
• Level 8 – Last Session: an empty cinema
• Level 9 – Archive: endless filing cabinets
• Level 10 – Lullaby: a house of residents who lie
• Level 11 – Greenhouse: overgrown glass, puzzles and a hedge maze
• Level 12 – Metro: stations, fuses and the last train
• Level 13 – Polar Station: a lighthouse, a callsign and a plane
• Level 14 – Full Moon Pizzeria: a night shift with cooking and a B.I.G. grate
• Level 15 – The Bureau: staff, reports, defences and several endings
• Level 16 – Epilogue: the cafe at 5:40

Levels link through doors, stairs and hidden routes, so no two runs go the same way.

The Priest of the Box

The Priest haunts Level 6 and rewards no one who treats him as a normal mob. Inspired by horror cinema's most famous cenobite, he is fully rebuilt in version 0.28.0, and all of it works only inside the Backrooms.

• The deal. He appears in a house holding out a puzzle box. Pay with flesh (maximum hearts), an item from your hotbar, or a promise, then repeat a pattern of glyphs, each with its own bell note.
• Will instead of invulnerability. Weapons do not hurt him. You break his will by wrecking his stakes and seals, killing his servants, solving his room and spotting the real face among his illusions. At half will he turns enraged: faster, darker, with the world's sounds muffled.
• Abilities. Flesh hooks that leash you, three servants (a bellringer, a seamstress and a tollkeeper), a shrinking puzzle room, a vow of pain and pleasure, trail hooks, thorn paths, three illusory faces and a paid-for second life.
• The Great Crucifixion. His strongest move: four seals appear and you have 15 seconds to break them, or you are chained up and lose half your health.
• Tells and brands. A bell note and a coloured spark warn you before each ability. Five brand marks pull him to you and weaken your healing. In darkness you cannot see him beyond a few blocks unless you hold a light.

When you leave his level, every debuff he placed on you disappears: lost hearts, brand, effects and promises.

Other threats

• Jason stalks Level 2 with fog, kicked-in doors, an axe and traps, and turns off lights and breaks things as he goes. The lights return after a while if he is gone.
• Infected counselors, the Survivor at the camp, and Level 0 hazards such as infection patches in ten varieties, trapped builds and fallen workers.
• Each later level adds its own residents, puzzles and finales, from the Greenhouse hedge maze to the Bureau's endings.

The B.I.G. tablet

On your first arrival you find an explorer's body and a glowing tablet from the Bureau for the Study of Borders. It holds a dossier, entity cards, a locator, chat, a snake game and a diary. Some of its information is wrong, and the tablet itself seems to know something about you.

Highlights

• Volumetric, multi-layer models for blocks, creatures, vehicles and furniture, with glowing parts and procedural animations.
• Custom interfaces for kiosks, the tablet and the Priest's deal screen.
• Atmosphere: fog, flickering lamps, per-level ambience and dozens of custom sounds.
• Advancements for levels, the Priest and the endings.
• Configurable: the config lets you tune exit frequency, Jason's behaviour, hazards per level and the cafe entrance. Commands for operators help with testing.

Requirements and install

• Minecraft 1.21.1 with NeoForge 21.1 and Java 21.
• Ghost Phone is optional.
• Client and server must run the same version, since the network protocol changes between releases.

Please note

Backrooms is a horror mod. Expect darkness, loud sounds, chases and sudden death. Back up your world before exploring, and report bugs along with your log so they can be fixed quickly.

Backrooms is one of the largest pieces of my modding work, and every level was built to feel unfamiliar the first time and haunting the second. Enjoy, and mind the lights.