Backrooms Wiki
Advertisement

How Does One Write A Good Level?

Perhaps you're here for the answer to this exact question. Read this entire guide before proceeding. Important tips will be bolded for your convenience.

1. A Revolutionary Concept

As some general guidelines, each level should capture a certain feeling of the Backrooms, whether it be familiarity, nostalgia, fear, suspense, loneliness, or surrealism. Such emotions are important to the experience and immersion of the Backrooms levels themselves. If you base your level off a real-life reference, such as a warehouse or a hospital, check for originality. The level should contain some abnormality or strangeness that distinguishes your level from a normal Frontrooms experience.

Stick to one theme. Do not suddenly change settings and designate each section of the level with a number. When a wanderer walks through a level, if something changes, the change should be gradual so as to capture a feeling of realism and nature. Levels should be unnatural, but abrupt cuts from safe areas to completely unsurvivable spaces will only leave a sour taste. Maintain the tone. If the tone switches, foreshadow it beforehand.

Make your level uncanny, but don't overdo it. Shoehorning "infinite size" will not make a level any more intriguing. In general, something in the levels should disobey established laws of reality — something should function differently. Make sure your levels are not predictable, especially if you are considering a log. A seemingly-safe level with occasional power outages can easily fall into this trap. You can predict that the level becomes much more dangerous in complete darkness; there will likely be entities appearing and intimidating wanderers with creepy noises. Try to avoid this "entities appear only in the dark" cliché whenever possible. It'll make your writing stand out from the rest of the crowd.

Avoid extremities with description. Too much "confidential information" and "undiscovered country" results in a bland stub, where the utter lack of description leaves a cliffhanger that makes readers angry, not amazed. It loses all its emotional appeal because all the redacted information was likely the source of pathos. However, do not over-describe. This overdone verbiage can easily bore readers — if your description is not essential for contributing to the tone, it may be best to exclude it.

Likewise, avoid extremities with safety and settlement. The Survival Difficulties Habitable and Deadzone exist, but use them sparingly. Understand that levels deemed extremely safe with multiple settlements can easily sap away all the feeling of the Backrooms, especially if the level does not lean into any fantasy elements. What separates Level 11 from a regular safely-guarded city? If a level concept does not incorporate danger to maintain the uncanniness, make sure the physical setting and properties are sufficiently described to make wanderers feel uncomfortable even in a safe haven. In comparison, Deadzone classifications are more likely to capture the feeling of the Backrooms, but are also more prone to the pitfalls coming with extremely deadly levels. If you kill your wanderer too early and evidently, there would be no room for any of the emotions associated with the Backrooms to enter one's mind. For Deadzones, allow wanderers to live for a little bit so as to capture that feeling of being close to death and give more room to describe the physical properties of the level. Bonus points if you are able to successfully explain why you classified it as a Deadzone. What makes this more physically challenging than a Survival Difficulty of 5?

Read your draft over and ask yourself these questions:

  • Why are you writing about this concept specifically? What makes it stand out from the others?
  • Does it invoke familiarity, nostalgia, fear, suspense, loneliness, or surrealism?
  • Can you identify why this level feels off-putting? What makes this a Backrooms level and not just a Frontrooms location?
  • Is the concept original and unique? Refrain from generic dark hallways and empty outside areas.
  • Is it cliché or predictable? Can one guess the rest of the events and settings based on the first few descriptors?
  • Can you describe it enough to produce a visual image in readers' heads, but preserve the vagueness to keep readers guessing?
  • How dangerous should the level be? Does the description of the level and its colonies support that label?
  • How much description should there be? Does it give readers a general gist without spoiling the main punchline (if one exists)?
  • Does it increase or maintain tension during the entire read? Make sure the colonies, outposts, entrances, and exits fit the relative theme of the level. End with a good impression, not a half-assed list of boring fluff for the sake of adding information.
  • Last of all, does your concept fit the Backrooms? Does it revolve around mystery, horror, or liminality?

Example: A Revolutionary Concept

Take a look at this image: GuideImage.jpeg

What do you see?

Perhaps you see that lone shopping cart in the middle of an empty parking lot. Maybe you see the ominous street light or the separated wall on the right where a small gap is visible. Notice how it's nighttime and a ladder can be seen leading to somewhere unknown. These work as jumping-off points.

Now structure a draft. Maybe the shopping cart acts like a hostile entity — a homing missile of sorts. The ladder may lead to pitch-black areas where no light ever shines. The street light might move on its own and drop light bulbs when wanderers get close to it, while the wall's narrow opening works as a entrance to another level, provided one can fit through it.

Maybe you'll hear eerie sounds, such as the ambiance of freezer noises or the crying of a baby in the supermarket. Make it unsettling. As the person who made this example, I know that this is a photograph of a supermarket parking lot taken at nighttime. However, the entire creepiness of this image comes from the fact that you don't know what it is or where it was taken. The shopping cart implies that it is a supermarket, while the yellow lines on the ground imply that the setting is a parking lot. However, the other structures feel… out of place for a supermarket setting, such as that ladder or that random gap in the right wall. Use those abnormalities to your advantage to distinguish a level from its Frontrooms counterpart. This brings up a tone of familiarity but also surrealism. It feels like your regular supermarket parking lot, but a few unusual properties make this image seem unnatural.

This is what you want to aim for when creating your concepts. Take an unsettling image and create an entire new world from it. Pictures are worth a thousand words — let the picture guide your brainstorming.

Overdone, Cliché, and Unoriginal Concepts

While you have the power to write any level you like, please refrain from these concepts. They're not prohibited. However, this database has way too many of them, and most of them are just bad copies of each other. Think of something unique — it's okay to have inspiration, but don't recycle already-done or low-effort ideas.

Overdone Concepts:

  • Infinite hallways, especially straight ones with zero odd properties whatsoever.
  • Habitable urban or suburban areas — Level 9 and Level 11 are sufficient already.
  • Glitchy computer simulations where reality is breaking apart.

Cliché Concepts:

  • An initially-safe level becomes more dangerous as you go "X miles in."
  • A level is split into numerous numbered sections, where each additional section is more dangerous than the last.
  • Levels extremely dangerous for no reason with little to no escape path.
  • Levels extremely safe for no reason, mimicking a Frontrooms location.
  • The internal voice begging you not to leave this place.

Unoriginal Concepts:

  • "Level X looks similar to Level Y, except…"
  • Shoehorning every entity possible into a level, even if the habitat doesn't necessarily fit.
  • Unnecessarily redacting half of the page's info and using zalgo text for creepines.
  • Levels intentionally acting as upgraded or more dangerous versions of other levels.
  • Attempts to imitate Wikidot Level 404 and its setting.
Advertisement