Backroom DoGoJo is built around three main design pillars: Continuous Growth, Exploration & Collection, and Building a Safe Home.
These three pillars work together to create a game where players can constantly discover new things, develop their abilities, and gradually transform the Backrooms into their own living space.
Pillar 1 — Continuous Growth
Core Principle: Each stage of progression should provide players with a stronger sense of reward and introduce new gameplay content.
A key draw of Backroom DoGoJo is the sense of growth and satisfaction derived from continuous development—both of the creatures and of the player’s own standing.
Players can shoot creatures to trigger their replication, then combine two creatures of the same level to create a higher-level individual. Each new level of creature generates more currency than the two lower-level ones combined, making the act of merging increasingly profitable.
The currency earned can be used to purchase supplies, upgrade weapons, and develop the player’s living environment. As players unlock higher-level creatures, they also gain access to new types of ammunition and equipment.
Pillar 2 — Exploration & Collection
The Backrooms is a vast and mysterious environment; I want players to have reasons to explore different areas, rather than remaining in one single location.
Key facilities—such as food shops, ammunition vendors, and 3D printers—are scattered across the map. Players can also discover resources and blueprints that help unlock new gameplay content.
Exploration and creature farming reinforce one another: players earn money by raising creatures, venture out across the map to seek new opportunities for growth, and then return with resources or upgrades to further develop their farming systems.
This design consistently encourages players to explore, gather, and uncover the many possibilities hidden within the Backrooms.
Pillar 3 — Building a Safe Home
Core Principle: Building should provide both practical benefits and a growing sense of comfort and ownership.
Building is not simply a decoration system in Backroom DoGoJo. It is an important part of how players survive and gradually change their relationship with the environment.
Players can use money and 3D printers to create furniture and develop their living spaces.
Built-up areas help players recover Sanity and reduce nearby monster activity, making these locations relatively safer than the surrounding environment.
As players continue building, empty and uncomfortable spaces gradually become personal living areas filled with useful furniture and facilities.
I want players to feel that they are not only surviving in the Backrooms, but slowly turning part of this strange world into a place they can call home.
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