Spot the difference horror works fantastically well in the backrooms simply due to the amount of settings and nonsense that can occur. I know you said you're completely reworking the game but it seems yall have a good idea of what you're doing!
I appreciate that the anomalies aren't extremely subtle, you just have to be observant. Like for example the wall of paintings, if that were to have an anomaly it should stand out, otherwise remembering a whole wall would be brutal. 

I liked the entity appearing, yall can definitely do more with that, hell make some anomalies wild! Have the player phase through again into another level and get chased, stuff like that would spice things up!

I also enjoy the addition of a narrative/story normally these types of games have a very light story or just simply lack one. Only thing is that walk at the end felt a little long, granted it was only 3mins but still I thought i went the wrong way. Having it be long enough for the monologue to play I think would be a good change.

Thanks again for stopping by the streams! Look forward to seeing the rework!

Gameplay 1:21:40

I’ve only played a few anomaly games before, and this is definitely one of the best of them. The backrooms theme has a good expectation for the style and I think you did a really good job pulling that off. There were a times I’d wander past something and question whether it had been there the whole time (it usually had). I thought the anomalies that I caught were good overall, sometimes a little hard since I’d fail but that’s just the game.

Like Collectonian suggested, subtitles would’ve been nice! Somehow the audio got set to 0% so I missed all the talking in my first attempt (~20 minutes) and wasn’t able to get that far again. The talking adds a lot to the game so it was a shame to miss it at first. But overall the dialogue added a lot and made the repetition a bit more interesting.

Also since I was playing on a tv, some of the text was hard to read on a few of the props. A larger calendar might make that easier to read, and an outline or different styling to the number on the computer screen would make it easier to read at a distance. Fun game overall!

I love a good anomaly game, and using the Backrooms as its setting is a cool touch as is it being in a much larger space than just a single room.  I liked the graphics and music, and the snarking guy on the speaker.  The croc suit picture had me cackling and also kind of wanting a copy for my walls 🤣  After a few missteps, I managed to get through the 8 levels successfully and dropped on the snowy path.

The only bug I noticed was that the speaker guy would sometimes ask if I missed an anomaly when I'd actually gone down the red tunnel in a room that wasn't changed.

A few suggestions would be to add an option to change the volume of the music and to please, please add subtitles.  I know I missed some of the speaker guy's statements because of it having the proximity volume and not just being able to make out the words, and in the snowy area I missed a lot of what he said, and it seemed like it was giving some good setup for the story from the bits I caught.

All in all, though, I quite enjoyed it, and I look forward to seeing how it progresses as you add the new features mentioned on the game page.

VOD Link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2881486951?t=02h41m51s

• Youtube Link / Twitch Link
• Graphics : A bit spotty, it works but a fair few things don't seem like they're of the same 'universe' (assets from a store?) , there are some issues with them in spots, pop in, weird texture issues etc. [This could be a problem for others as it was for me, I thought the coffee table was sus.]
• GUI : Mostly absent , the main menu is kinda rough looking.
• Performance : Performance was a bit iffy, mostly on the stream end, unsure as to what the cause might be.
• Music / Sfx : 
  • Music : Utterly absent , would be nice if there was a non-anomalous radio to just listen to something.
  • SFX : BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT , [please lower the intensity of the light's SFX] , inverse on the intercom guy , could hardly hear him.
• Gameplay : I'm not really big on anomaly games , they're not really my cup of tea. I did however complete this one so it's a bit easier than others that I've done (for better or worse).
• Misc Issues : 
  • "ESC" menu being on "Tab" (??)
  • Sensitivity is a bit weird off the cuff (Wasn't able to change it due to TAB/ESC menu issue)
  • Weird Light
  • The snow section seemed like it was going to be an infinite hallway section, maybe something could be done to make it less 'samey' so it's clear you're actually moving?
• Notes :
  • I feel like this might have the same issue that a fair few other 'anomaly' games have where some of the 'subtle' anomalies are a bit too subtle, but without seeing a list I can't say.
  • No SFX on the slide
  • Intercom guy could be used to hint towards what anomaly missed , considering the guy is already a bit of a jerk , he could misdirect as well. (But it'd be nice to be given a chance to potentially learn what it was so you don't keep making the same mistake)
  • The slides have very visible geometry, could be smoothed a bit.
  • Is there any way to really fail or die? Despite presence of monsters there was a lack of any threat. (Not a bad thing)
  • HEY! DidIscareya?:D
  • The Piano room and...water boiler (?) room seem to not have any anomalies , the piano on it's own is a bit sus
• Final Thoughts : Overall I didn't mind my experience with the game too much, but I will say it felt like it could've done more. 

I liked the atmosphere of this one, and there was one little scare that REALLY got me! (it was the kid in the playhouse... I don't think I reacted very loud on stream but my blood did run cold for a second.)

I'm not super familiar with the "anomoly" subgenre, so forgive me if I just don't understand the genre conventions, but I feel like the environment was almost too detailed to be able to spot what's different or out of place. It's not so much the layout, but the fidelity of some of the textures around the environment. I think I mentioned it on stream a little bit, but there's a small calendar with a date on it, and a bulletin board covered in text, and a children's rug covered in letters and numbers - This might just be a personal gripe, but filling the environment with text makes the game more frustrating than I think it means to be. I felt like I should memorize the layout of each letter on the rug, and the specific pictures on the wall, and all that jazz. If you're going to include an anomoly where the rug changes letters, then I guess it's good that I was thinking about that kind of stuff, but if you don't plan on making anomolies that subtle, it might be beneficial to make some of the textures simpler. It seems like as a genre, every item should be placed and styled very intentionally, and being unsure as to if I should memorize the layout of a rug texture doesn't seem to be what was intended. I dunno, just a couple of thoughts!

I will also say, as someone who is pretty unfamiliar with the genre, I think some kind of tutorial or direction would be nice. It took a bit of trial and error to figure out what exactly I was supposed to be doing. 

Ok wait I just read the other comment on this page and saw them talk about a settings bug that set their master volume to 0. Reviewing footage, sure enough! I had the same thing happen to me. So if there was a tutorial through that narrator, I definitely missed it! I kinda wanna go back now and hear the narrator, bummed I missed out on that!

Anyway, there are countless backrooms games now, so I respect you for doing something different with it! And like I said earlier, some of the scares really got me :P

I played the game on stream around 2:57:00

We really had fun with this game. It was just enough area to be challenging while not being so big as to be tedious. Once we got into the swing of things, it did become a little bit on the easy side, but that will probably work itself out once more anomalies are added and more levels are put in. The intercom guy is hilarious and we can't wait to hear what new lines you're planning on adding in as the game continues.

The art style definitely fits a backrooms/anomaly liminal vibe. The only knock there is that the fidelity of some of the assets drops a bit when you get close up so things get a bit fuzzy. But, really, that's not that big of an issue.

The UI in terms of the HUD is a perfect fit for the minimalist liminal vibe of backrooms-style games. So that design choice works great. The fact that the menu can't be brought up in-game is probably a result of this being an alpha, but it is something that needs to be addressed. Also, going into the Options menu for some reason automatically sets the master volume to 0%, which made us think there was an audio bug when it was really just a settings bug. The Apply button in that menu could also use some kind of visual/audio feedback to show that it actually did something when clicked.

There's definitely room for improvement in the controls. The sensitivity is kind of difficult to pin down. It starts out too high, but when turned down a little, it feels sluggish. There's also a lack of parity between controller and keyboard. The controller has no 'E' on it, so even though you can move just fine with it, you need the keyboard to go down the slide. On more of a personal preference side, Y U NO HAVE JUMP OR CROUCH!?!??! We kid. But not really. We like to jump and crouch and there's a real missed opportunity to be able to crawl inside the tent (and to play the piano for that matter). We'd also have appreciated the ability to sprint, as only being able to mosey can make going back and forth kind of tedious. Again, the size of the room mitigates this to some degree, but not completely, so that could be helpful, even if it's just a little bit faster than normal walk.

On the audio side, the first thing we noticed was how loud the buzzing is and how quiet the intercom guy was. And, unfortunately, there didn't really seem to be a way to make that better. What even does the "sound effects" volume control? There are no sound effects, as far as we could tell. So, bumping up the intercom volume, reducing the buzzing noise, and making them distinctly controllable from the menu would go a really long way. All that said, the crunchy snow walking sound was just gorgeous. Put that in an IV. 

As far as pacing, we think that hit the sweet spot, too. Of course, we don't know how that will change if you add more length to the game. But overall, the combination of the size of the room, the number of objects in it, and the balance of ease/challenge of identifying anomalies makes the time it takes to make a decision right in that zone where it's not too quick but it's not dragging either. The intercom breaking up the monotony also helps with this, though could definitely use more variety (which we know you already have planned). 

Overall, we really love this. It's definitely something we could see ourselves playing on a lazy, rainy weekend. We kind of want to see if there's more to the story as you finish this out. Probably shouldn't get too specific and "peak behind the curtain" to keep its mysterious allure, but with the intercom narrative, it feels like it's going somewhere. Keep up the awesome work on this because with the millions of backrooms and anomaly games out there, we feel like this one is a real gem. 

https://youtube.com/live/ECI1FzJpEzc?feature=share