The Room

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The Room on Steam

MSRP: $4.99 on PC / $0.99 on mobile

Platforms: Windows, iOS, Android

Release: 9/12/12

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The Room couldn’t be more right up my alley if it was created for me.  It’s a beautiful puzzler that’s intellectual without feeling like a pop quiz. There’s the barest whisper of a story – one that might be easy to miss if I weren’t reading everything so closely just in case there’s a clue within (and I bet before the game’s over, there’s going to be a clue within).

I’ve poked and prodded my way through the first section, and most of the second.  Mostly, I’m “touching” everything.  I’m trying to look at each tiny thing from every conceivable angle, and I’m loving every minute of it.  I don’t know that I’ve played such a pure puzzle game since the mid nineties when Jewels of the Oracle was straining my PC with it’s amazing (for the time) graphics.

The Room does come with a hint system, but it’s not intrusive, and it won’t give you the answer. Unfortunately, The Room has the same problem as just about any puzzle game – it’s not really going to have much replay value.  You figure out the puzzles, you beat the game, you’re done.  And really, you want progress to come fairly quickly in a puzzle game so you don’t wander off and get frustrated.

So it’s not surprising that there aren’t a lot of pure puzzlers out there, because for the detail that’s gone into this, I’m stunned at the low purchase price.  I haven’t played any of the mobile versions (or the sequels, which sadly don’t seem to be available for PC), so I can’t say that it’s necessarily worth spending the extra money to play it on the computer, but I can say that the controls feel fluid enough you don’t feel punished for not having a touchscreen.