Curses add additional mechanics to the game that makes it more difficult. The curses range from additional environmental traps, like poison, to death lasers that follow the player around the game world. Each curse also adds a modifier to the final score. The curses add a way for the players to naturally increase the difficulty to the point that suits them. The player character starts of with a basic pistol weapon that has infinite ammo and a melee weapon. During gameplay the player can pickup ammo for his primary weapons or destroy weapon crates to get special weapons. The 34 special weapons each have a unique twist to them, for example the biomedic sniper can heal the player, while the gravity gun can group up enemies and make short work of them. The player unlocks new special weapons by completing different tasks in the game. While playing the player defeats enemies and destroys the environment to gather Mojo, the games equivalent to experience. When enough mojo is gathered the player level ups and gains a perk which he can select from a group of three different perk per level. The perk he/she will get on the next level up is also indicated to make it possible to plan out builds one level in advance. "I Hate Running Backwards" is set in the universe of "Serious Sam" at an undisclosed moment in time. One of Mental's subordinates, Ugh-Zan has been put together from the parts of Ugh-Zan and Hugo and sent to the future to stop the group of heroes from fighting Mental. Ugh-Zan's mind was uploaded to the new mechanized body and he can also transfer it to the tank module that is stored inside his body as a last defense mode. Sam and his group of heroes travel through time to defeat Mental's minions once and for all. "I Hate Running Backwards" features characters from different franchises that were published by Devolver Digital, with the exception of "Nuclear Throne", which was published and developed by Vlambeer. The characters that are featured in the game are Serious Sam, Dancing Denzell, and Fast Finger Freddie from the "Serious Sam" franchise, Richard from "Hotline Miami", Rambro from "Broforce", The Bullet from "Enter the Gungeon", Crystal from "Nuclear Throne", and Lo Wang from "Shadow Warrior". The other 4 characters in game are unique characters from "I Hate Running Backwards". Development on "I Hate Running Backwards" started in 2016. The developers of the game, Binx Interactive are a small team consisting of five developers who worked on video games as a hobby, but were showing up to game developer conferences in Croatia.