The Backrooms have been creeping into the horror genre with alarming frequency of late. While this niche was once the sole province of Western creators, we are now seeing 'liminal space' projects set in familiar domestic locations—like the Sindorim Station—making their mark. It is a testament to just how mainstream the Backrooms have become.

Once a genre hits the mainstream, it inevitably bleeds into other formats, building its own twisted realities. Enter A.D.D., a game that tasks you with stepping into the shoes of a staffer at 'Halcyon Industries'. Under the guise of developing AI solutions for industrial safety, you are responsible for dispatching personnel into the Backrooms and synthesising data to identify anomalies. The gameplay, which feels reminiscent of Cultist Simulator, is a fascinating look at the corporate side of the supernatural. To see what A.D.D. brings to the table, we spoke with developer Choi Jae-in from the team 'One More Spoon'.

In A.D.D., you act as a manager in a corporate department dedicated to anomaly detection. Your job is simple: dispatch employees, collect records from their expeditions, and refine the data for AI training to meet your quotas. Think of it as a corporate management sim in the vein of Lethal Company, though you won't be watching yellow-clad workers die in real-time or navigating 3D maps. It is all about the cold, hard data.

Choi explains the core loop: "Like Cultist Simulator, you are managing cards on a board; like Lethal Company, you are chasing quotas; and like Lobotomy Corporation, you are uncovering the story through repetitive tasks." You start by designing work processes, connecting nodes for exploration, refinement, and submission, all while applying 'Work Protocols' that significantly alter the outcome of each task. These protocols range from specialized exploration gear to specific operational guidelines, ensuring that no two runs feel quite the same.

For instance, if you apply a camera to an expedition exploring a hidden room, you might snag data that would otherwise stay buried. Conversely, using a flashlight in a pit zone might trigger a disastrous accident for your employee. The way you connect these tasks to create a procedural workflow is what the team calls 'Node Process Design', the very heart of A.D.D.

This design philosophy practically begs for repeat playthroughs. Take the 'Performance Packaging' protocol—a high-risk, high-reward strategy that inflates your data value to hit quotas faster. Use it too greedily, however, and you will trigger an internal audit, leading to an immediate game over. Audits also occur if you submit corrupted data or suffer too many staff casualties. Choi notes, "We balanced the game so you have to weigh the dangers of the protocols against the submission results and the survival of your staff."

Essentially, you can be a model employee or start meddling with the various requests and events that pop up during your shifts. Depending on which requests you accept, who you report to, and how closely you follow corporate orders, the narrative—and the ending—will shift. Side quests add layers to this, ensuring that every time you return to the board, the experience feels fresh.

The team 'One More Spoon' is a four-person outfit consisting of Kim Jin-seong, Lee Ha-nyeong, Jo Ye-hyeon, and Choi Jae-in. The name is a nod to that feeling when you eat something delicious and just have to have 'one more bite'; they want their game to leave players craving just one more run. Their logo, a melting lightbulb, symbolises their desire to pack more ideas into their game than their metaphorical spoon can hold.

While everyone has their specialities, there are no rigid boundaries here. All four members participated in the overall planning, development, and game design for A.D.D., tossing ideas back and forth for new systems and content. Key art and sound were outsourced, but the core systems of A.D.D. are entirely the work of these four developers.

For One More Spoon, the goal was reinterpretation. While most Backrooms games focus on the visceral 3D horror of walking through empty corridors, they opted for a 2D puzzle simulation. By reviewing expedition logs and corporate documents, you play the part of an observer, piecing together the chaos from afar and layering in a unique AI-driven world-building element.

Choi explains, "Liminal spaces are unsettling because they feel familiar yet slightly 'off'. We thought that felt a lot like an AI struggling to perfectly mimic reality. The world of A.D.D. starts with the question: 'What if the bizarre spaces of the Backrooms are just the result of an AI mislearning and hallucinating reality?' The Backrooms here look real, but the rules and structures are just slightly broken. It is all tied to advanced AI and imperfect training data."

The title A.D.D. is a nod to 'Anomaly Detection Department', borrowing from the machine learning term 'Anomaly Detection'—the art of finding patterns that deviate from the norm. They have cleverly woven this technical concept into the very fabric of their Backrooms exploration.

Development wasn't without its hurdles. Choi recalls how, after the first prototype, the team made the mistake of overcomplicating the rules. The prototype showed promise, but in their enthusiasm, they added too many stats and secondary mechanics.

Initially, they relied on card names and text to distinguish features. Playtesting revealed that as the pile of cards grew, it became a nightmare to track information at a glance. They pivoted to distinct card art and visual indicators for data quality. When the board got cluttered, they introduced 'baskets' to help players organise their own space, turning a UI issue into a player-driven mechanic.

Choi says, "Playtime is roughly 1 to 2 hours for a first ending, though that depends entirely on the player. If you want to explore every route and fill out the codex, it will take much longer. We are waiting to see how players react before committing to specific post-launch content."

Choi continues, "If we do expand, we want to add new levels or deepen the combinations of existing logs. We are less interested in just dumping more cards into the game and more interested in creating new zones and protocols that force players to rethink their processes."

One More Spoon is keen to explore the same world from different angles in future titles, and there is already talk of revisiting some of the discarded prototypes that didn't make the cut for A.D.D.

In closing, Choi says, "We’ve tried to reinterpret the familiar Backrooms using our own unique node-based mechanics and AI lore. If you have a soft spot for the Backrooms or a good puzzle game, we hope you’ll give it a try."