A24's Backrooms movie just broke records, and 500+ Backrooms games are on Steam. Here's how to make your own — liminal halls, lurking entities, multiplayer and all — without writing a single line of code.
Why everyone is suddenly making Backrooms games
The Backrooms went from a 2019 4chan image to a record-breaking A24 film (the biggest movie in the studio's history, released May 29, 2026) made by a director who started by building Backrooms videos as a teenager. There are now 500+ Backrooms games on Steam. The format is simple, atmospheric, and endlessly remixable — which is exactly why it's the perfect thing to build yourself. If you've ever thought "I'd make the Backrooms scarier / weirder / mine," now's the time.
The shortcut: start from a working game, not a blank file
Building a 3D first-person horror game from scratch is a lot: movement, collision, lighting, enemy AI, a scoring system, multiplayer. The shortcut is to start from one that already works.
We built a Backrooms game on Rosebud AI as a template. It's free, runs in the browser, and is deliberately scoped as a starting point.
👉 Template: https://rosebud.ai/play/backrooms-break-in
What you get out of the box:
- First-person movement through the classic yellow Level 0
- A risk/reward loop: observe the monsters for points, survive chases for more, avoid getting caught
- Multiplayer groundwork — names, avatars, in-game chat
- A readable codebase you can extend
The hard engineering is done. Your job is the idea — and the look.
How to make a Backrooms game in 5 steps
Step 1: Open the template and play it. Go to https://rosebud.ai/play/backrooms-break-in and play a full run. Notice how the observe-for-points loop feels, how close you dare get, where the tension lives. Note what you'd change.
Step 2: Fork it. Click the Rosebud watermark in the bottom-right and choose "Remix this game." You now own a copy in your dashboard — every change stays in your project.
Step 3: Decide your spin. The fastest, highest-impact changes are visual and thematic, because the gameplay already works. Some directions:
- Setting: Poolrooms, a derelict mall, a hospital at 3am, an office, an empty waterpark
- Entity: a Smiler in the dark, something that only moves when unseen, a crawling thing in the vents
- Tone: dread-soaked and slow, or chaotic co-op comedy
- Twist: add a flashlight with batteries, a sanity meter, collectibles, an exit to find
Keep the core loop; change the fiction and texture. That's where great Backrooms games come from.
Step 4: Talk to Rosie. Rosie is Rosebud's AI assistant — you change the game by chatting in plain English:
- "Reskin Level 0 into the Poolrooms — tiled walls, shallow water, aqua lighting."
- "Add a Smiler entity that only appears when the player isn't looking at it."
- "Give the player a flashlight that drains and needs batteries found in the level."
- "Add a second level the player unlocks after scoring 2,000 points."
- "Add a tip jar so players can support me."
She writes the code; you play-test; you iterate.
Step 5: Publish and share. Hit Publish and you get a link anyone can play in their browser — no downloads. You can let others remix yours too. (And on Rosebud's paid plans you can export a Windows .exe if you ever want a desktop build for Steam.)
Where people get stuck (and how to avoid it)
- Trying to redesign everything before shipping. Don't. Fork it, change one thing, play. Repeat.
- Vague prompts. "Make it scarier" won't work. "Make the lights flicker and cut to darkness for 2 seconds every 30 seconds" will.
- Skipping screenshots. Rosebud lets you screenshot the game and feed it back to Rosie for visual changes — far more accurate than text alone.
- Not saving checkpoints. Save often so a broken change has a rollback.
Build it while the Backrooms is hot
Attention on the Backrooms is at an all-time high. The engineering used to be the wall; with this template and Rosie, that part's largely done. Want to play before you build? Here's the free Backrooms game, some games like the Backrooms, and a primer on what the Backrooms are.
👉 Start from the template: https://rosebud.ai/play/backrooms-break-in · or build from scratch at rosebud.ai
Andi Bucescu
Andi is the Head of Marketing at Rosebud, where she writes about the intersection of AI, creativity, and brand storytelling. She explores how generative AI is reshaping marketing strategies and creative workflows, with a focus on making complex technology accessible and cutting through the noise of modern campaigns. Her perspective is informed by undergraduate research on effective social media content and consumer psychology.