// build log

Devlog

The open technical log for escapethebackrooms.us — a browser Backrooms game built in the open. This page tracks how it's actually made and what changed, in plain technical terms. No hype, no roadmap; just the build and the changelog.

The stack

Three.js r0.169
Vanilla ES modules
No build step
Static · GitHub Pages
Deploy = git push
MIT-licensed code

Everything ships as hand-written HTML/CSS/JS with Three.js vendored in and loaded through an import map — there is no bundler, no framework, and no compile step. You can read every line that runs by viewing source. The whole site is static and deploys by pushing to main.

What's live right now

The Lobby live

The landing page (/) — a fluorescent VHS holding page for Level 0.

Level 0 prototype

/experience/ — an on-rails descent through instanced cell-grid corridors. The whole level renders in roughly four to six draw calls (floor, ceiling, void-facing walls, and light panels are each one InstancedMesh), with a single hand-written fused GLSL "VHS" pass on Three's stock EffectComposer. Textures are drawn to canvas at runtime, so the image payload is effectively zero. An early prototype.

Graybox sandbox testbed

/experience/sandbox/ — the deliberately-ugly movement testbed. A recursive-backtracker maze you free-walk: pointer-lock + WASD on desktop, a virtual stick + drag-look on touch, with per-axis grid-cell collision and wall-sliding. Walls are a single InstancedMesh, so it holds a high frame rate regardless of maze size.

CYOA spike parked

An unlinked choose-your-path interaction prototype (/experience/cyoa/), kept on disk for its drag-look code.

How it's built

Rendering by instancing. Levels are cell grids drawn as a few InstancedMeshes, so draw-call count stays flat as the map grows — fog bounds the visible depth, so cost tracks what's on screen, not total size.
One custom post pass. The VHS look (warble, tracking dropout, chroma split, scanlines, grain, vignette, tape grade) is a single fused GLSL ShaderPass — no post-processing plugin stack, no GPU-tier detection.
Kinematic movement. The free-walk controller is corner-sampled grid collision with wall-sliding — cheap, predictable, and enough to judge feel before any physics engine.
Zero-asset first. Placeholder textures are painted to <canvas> at load, keeping the initial download tiny while the art pipeline is still open.
Accessibility baked in. prefers-reduced-motion is honored in JS, the VHS effect has a manual toggle, and flashing is kept under 3 Hz.

Changelog

2026-07-12 — Repo cleanup

Pruned superseded planning docs and retired the old /lore doc archive; trimmed the internal build notes down to shipped facts.

2026-06-14 — Sandbox fix

Fixed a reversed strafe vector (A and D were swapped) in the free-walk controller; reconciled the internal docs to the shipped build.

2026-06-10 — R1a: free-walk sandbox

New graybox testbed at /experience/sandbox/: recursive-backtracker maze (33×33, fixed seed), pointer-lock + WASD / touch stick + drag-look, per-axis grid collision with wall-sliding, all walls in one InstancedMesh (~2 draw calls), high frame rate on desktop.
Added the MIT license for the code plus an explicit all-rights-reserved notice for written and visual content.

2026-06-08 → 09 — Docs ↔ code reconciliation

Audited every internal doc against the shipped build; confirmed the renderer is one hand-written GLSL VHS pass on stock EffectComposer (not a plugin stack).
Evaluated Gaussian splatting for the environments and dropped it for now — flat, textureless Backrooms surfaces are a worst case for 3D Gaussian splats.

2026-06-04 — Tooling + a parked spike

Added a 2D top-down level-design tool for laying out mazes as data.
Parked a choose-your-path interaction prototype at /experience/cyoa/.

2026-05-31 — Level 0 rebuilt

Winding instanced-cell-grid corridors and a "Turn" room; DOM caption layer; runtime canvas textures (no image payload). Custom domain went live.

2026-05-30 — Project start

Coming-soon lobby page. Static GitHub Pages, no build step — the shape it still has today.

Open source & licensing

This project is built in the open. The split is deliberate:

Code = MIT. The source that makes the site run is free to read, learn from, and reuse.

Short quotations from and descriptions of A24's Backrooms (2026) appear for criticism and commentary (fair use); that film remains the property of its rights holders. Full terms live in the repository's LICENSE and README.