2.5/5 ★ – PhatBaby's review of Backrooms: Escape Together.

(Part of my noble quest to play every single Backrooms game on Steam) After so long, my buddy and I finally have schedules that have aligned closely enough to return to our pilgrimage. We are once again Backrooms scholars, and like Moses seeing the burning bush, I take that as a sign. A sign that it's time, once again, to see a man made of flesh and wires run endlessly into a corner while I drink gallons of almond water to maintain some sort of "sanity" mechanic, which works differently every time but always feels familiar in the fact that it's absolute trash and conflicts with every other mechanic in the game. This one was surprisingly fine, you know. Suspiciously fine. Like a calm before the storm, knowing I'm probably gonna be back in the realm of "Furry Backrooms" soon, and wondering whether I'm being secretly mined for bitcoin. Some fun ideas and mechanics, even if it's a Backrooms game, meaning it's janky and clumsy as hell. There's one level where they actually cook REALLY hard using that Xbox-Kinect-ass dot echo location mechanic. First time I've seen one of these games make something really nifty with that idea, which is saying something, because it's in all of them. So good job on that one. Then there's a level where a big blind man chases you around, but he doesn't really do anything except linger in one spot and sometimes decide he isn't blind and run right at you when you're crouched and aren't speaking. It was especially funny when, like three levels later, he comes back in a really awkward chase sequence, and reveals he got laser eye surgery and is now chasing you with 20/20 vision. I mean, good for him, but like... I am questioning now whether you made the whole thing up to get a better parking spot at Sainsbury's. Overall, it wasn't a game I'd recommend playing with anyone unless you're a little drunk and/or in a fierce pilgrimage to become an enlightened Backrooms Scholar like me and my holy brother of the Yellow Room order. We've gone through enough of these now that when we entered a room with party balloons, the maddening sound of the Daisy Bell song on repeat and that road map children's rug that every single human being on Earth owned, we sighed a sigh of collective shared trauma, and immediately knew we'd be on that level for at least an hour. But hey, for a Backrooms game that was definitely made by some fledgling video game developers who are probably in their teens and love analogue horror, I'd say they did pretty damn good.