By far my favorite game I played this week, The Room is a beautifully crafted puzzle game. The game begins in a room with a curious box on the floor. Gameplay is quite simple, the user spins around the box with the touchpad and can zoom in to find clues.
Between downloading the game last Thursday and 1 AM Friday morning I had completed the game and had to hide my iPad under my bed to keep myself from continuing on to the Epilogue — which looks equally fantastic. Check out the trailer below. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-NdQSeTPfA]
The games artistic design is what really makes The Room shine. Each stage, as the user delves deeper into the box is created with beautiful precision. The animation is fantastic, combining the mundane and spectacular. The user is required to do everything from turning a screw on a wall, to peering through a multi-dimensional mirror using a special lens. The slightly sinister soundtrack ties together the sci-fi narrative and dark scenes.
Once you adapt to the artistry of The Room, you can begin to focus on the puzzles. Each clue is just simple enough to figure out that you push on to the next stage. If you get too stuck, a hint is provided. But for the most part, as you move through the game and begin to understand the world — clues start to pop out, you begin to notice that slightly different shaped foot of the box or a strange shimmer on a spinning dial.
Occasionally, the areas that can be clicked and zoomed in on feel limited: you can only really zoom in on areas that are relevant to the story. This a. makes the game a little easier because you realize if you can zoom in on a seemingly blank wall it probably has some significance but b. makes the gameplay slightly more clunky than it needs too — occasionally zooming in when you don’t intend to or not letting you get a closer look at an element you find suspicious.
All-in-all, The Room is a fantastic game, full of clever interesting puzzles and beautiful design.