The Backrooms have exploded from creepypasta lore into full-fledged viral pop culture. This endless maze of eerie offices and yellowed wallpaper has captured the imaginations of over 2.3 million followers across Reddit, YouTube, and TikTok. Fans obsess over the Backrooms‘ mysterious origins, theorize over its non-Euclidean geometry, and create their own chilling found footage set in the bizarre realm.
Capitalizing on the hype, video game developers have brought the Backrooms into full immersive 3D environments. One of the most popular is Escape the Backrooms on Roblox. With over 425,000 likes, Escape the Backrooms transfers the Backrooms‘ liminal horror into a multiplayer survival challenge.
The Challenges of Escape the Backrooms
In Escape the Backrooms, you and up to three other players spawn together in a locked room on Level 1. Your goal is to locate clues, tools, and codes to progress through the Backrooms and ultimately escape its endless maze.
However, Escape the Backrooms ups the stakes with AI-controlled monsters inspired by the Backrooms lore. Nine hostile entities prowl the halls, including the infamous Smiler who attacks intruders on sight with his distorted grin.
As you explore Escape the Backrooms‘ procedurally generated rooms, you must evade or distract these entities using your wits and limited resources. With each level, both the environment and entities grow more complex and deadly.
Surviving long enough to discover each level‘s hidden exit is a pulse-pounding challenge. But before even facing the dangers of Floor 2, you must pass the first major hurdle: cracking the elevator code to escape Floor 1.
Understanding Floor 1‘s Layout and Clues
When starting a new game in Escape the Backrooms, you‘ll spawn alone in a random Level 1 room. The initial area always shares the same bland Backrooms aesthetics: drywall dividers forming claustrophobic offices, dirty carpets, and flickering fluorescent lights.
A typical Escape the Backrooms Floor 1 spawn point
Your first priority is gearing up by looting any drawers, closets, and bathrooms you encounter. Medical kits, flashlights, walkie talkies, and even weapons spawn randomly around the level. Loot as much as you can carry to prepare for future levels.
As you explore, listen for ambient noises like distant footsteps or the low hum of fluorescent lights. These sounds offer clues where key locations are, like the parking garage.
Within 5-10 minutes of the match‘s start, all players still alive with be automatically teleported to the central elevator hub. Here you must put your heads together to crack the code and descend to Floor 2.
Cracking the Elevator Code
The central elevator is locked behind an unmarked yellow door identical to the other offices. Next to the door hangs an unsettling poster that reads "The past unlocks the future."
This poster offers a cryptic clue to cracking the elevator code
Entering the room, you‘ll spot the elevator and a keypad. It quickly becomes clear this 4-digit code unlocks the elevator to Floor 2. But what do the poster clues mean?
The trick lies in the parking garage. Finding this garage on Floor 1 is key to deciphering the color code.
Once inside the garage, you‘ll spot a row of 4 parked cars. Their order from left to right, top to bottom corresponds to the digits 0-9 based on color:
- Red = 7
- Blue = 4
- Green = 1
- Yellow = 8
For example, if the car order is Yellow, Red, Green, Blue, the code is 8741.
Cracking the color/number code using the parked cars
This color cipher randomizes in each new game, forcing you to locate the garage and decipher the code every time. Tactics like splitting up to find the garage quicker can help crack it fast.
Input the code, and the elevator will unlock!
Tips and Strategies for Floor 1 Survival
Having cracked the backrooms once, here are some tips from my experience speedrunning and breaking Escape the Backrooms that will help you survive:
- Only sprint when chased. Otherwise walk calmly to conserve stamina for outmaneuvering entities later on.
- Grab maps when you see them. Mapping out Floor 1 reveals the quickest paths between key rooms.
- Speak in whispers using the proximity chat. Entities can hear normal voices across the level.
- Pick a classroom, bathroom, or office to duck into when evading entities. Use furniture to block AI pathfinding.
- Knocking over chairs, wastebaskets, or lamps can distract pursuing entities.
- Disabling SFX mutes ambient noises but also entity sounds, making them harder to evade.
Follow these tips, and you‘ll have the elevator code cracked and be descending to Floor 2 within 15 minutes of starting Escape the Backrooms.
What Lies Beyond Floor 1?
Cracking the first elevator code is just the start of escaping the Backrooms in this anxiety-inducing game. As the robotic elevator doors close and the machinery groans to life, you‘ll feel both relief at progressing and dread for what lies below.
The few accounts from players who have reached the legendary final Floor 10 describe far more terrifying entities and environments deeper in the Backrooms. But with fast problem solving skills, trust in your teammates, and nerves of steel, escaping the Backrooms elevator by elevator is possible.
The viral pop culture phenomenon of the Backrooms will enthrall and terrify audiences for years to come. For horror fans seeking total immersive terror, games like Escape the Backrooms bring the Backrooms to vivid life through gameplay. Just be warned: you‘ll need your wits about you to crack the code and descrend to the next floor.
