A brief history of time

Sorry Stephen, actually it's been quite some time ever since I've started this game, and never thought I will be able to release it on Steam. Well.. to be fair in Early Access for now. Back in 2022 (started around the same time as cough cough Escape The Backrooms although they hit completion whereas I didn't), I thought this is just gonna be a one-time project in Unreal Engine 4, make something for a week and just drop it, but I guess it stuck to me. For quite some time.

Never thought I will be getting this far, and I am very thankful. Although 2024 hit me like a rock ever since, I wasn't able to release as many updates as I did before, but that is alright. It's time to look back, reflect, and take the lessons from then.

As a small reminder for whoever is reading this, whether you're a developer, musician, artist, student; you name it, never forget to take a fucking break. I do understand hard work does pay off, but at this point you are balancing your work more than yourself. Yes you need to make profits, yes most likely that work of yours is even your job, but you must take it easy. That's something I did not take into account, and hit a very big creative block, burnout...? Maybe...? I don't know the difference between burnout and hiatus. Hold on.

clears throat

Alright so after a Google search, burnout is the exhaustion in doing stuff when you're exposed to a lot, think of it like this: You are piling in a month's work in a week, very locked in, very focused, you get progress after progress, but after some time you start to see that fade out and eventually avoid it. I mean that's what happened with me. I was not aware of it, after hours and hours spent daily I then realized: "Ok, but what now?". Or stuff like "Nah I'll do it later". This stacked up, and well... postponed... and postponed... and also decreased the motivation and focus of what I wanted to do because of distractions.

But what about a hiatus?

Hiatus is the outcome apparently, the pause itself, you can have a burnout without a hiatus. And a hiatus without a burnout. What separates the two is that... well... let's say a hiatus is something you can see coming, you know it's happening: "Guys I will be taking a break from all this game dev stuff since I got some other stuff to do, but I will continue back eventually." Burnout, not so much. As for me, I kinda pushed through and barely took breaks, if even, and lead to the stage I kinda am in now.

Is it a burnout?

Most likely, but this "burnout" seems to be fading away and it's more of a hiatus mostly. Some stuff in my life don't allow me to go fully 100% in Budget Backrooms yet. We will get there, or just take it slow. Eventually.

Multiplayer

Now that the rambling is done, getting the game on Steam allowed me to experiment with the Steam platform (thanks Lory), and oh boy do they offer a lot on the SDKs (as long as you use C++ of course to either expose blueprint nodes or just make normal code). Peer-To-Peer was the most plausible solution for Budget Backrooms since I won't need to worry in paying any server fees.

Integrating

While the first-time integration of Multiplayer was a pain in the ass, because Unreal Engine had a lot of issues getting to recognize the SDK, for some reason I had to use the in-built one. Apparently even disabling OnlineSubsystemSteam helped sometimes, but I enabled it back. To put it short, the beginning part was a pain. And also a lot of rubberbanding was present. I mean... it was still something right?

After some weeks later, rigorous testing later and some more config files changed, it was fixed. Somehow. While I was at it (losing my brains) I also made this playlist on Spotify.

Well then, what now? You got that fixed right?

Ehh... let me present to you...

Even more integration.

At this point in time (June 2026) the "hidden Multiplayer mode" is still lacking:

• Whole game ported from Single-Player logic to Multiplayer, and thus making stuff replicable (show the same stuff).
  • Although good luck for me since this is the hardest step to do thus far. Unlike other engines, Unreal Engine overcomplicates everything for some reason.
• Player Model.
• Names over player's heads.
• Lobby System (do we need one?).
• Joining Sessions over Steam Overlay.
• Spectating system. ...yeah okay this is kinda a lot. By the way you can access it early by switching to the nightly-dev branch inside Steam.

What now?

While Multiplayer won't be abandoned, it is not my main focus for now, since it requires me to change most of the game's logic. It is not guaranteed Multiplayer will release. I said multiple times on Discord and polls that "Yeah MP will be out trust" but it seems I cannot be able to keep my word. It was not a promise from what I can recall, but it is a lot of work to do. And I am sorry for saying this but I will not guarantee it will end up in the final version.

Conclusion

Until the coast is clear that the game's code will be cleaned up from my side, slowly but surely, I'd love to focus on the base game first and then possibly adding Multiplayer. I did not have in mind nor expect the game's demand for Multiplayer will go so high (since the game itself was supposed to be Singleplayer), which, I am thankful. Good things require time.

-dabarDev.