One room, four walls, a claustrophobic space. Dark music, heartbeats, whispers. Described as a ‘mind-bending journey filled with beauty, peril and mystery’ by British developer Fireproof Games, The Room is a place that you won’t want to leave even if you could.
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British-based Fireproof Studios was formed in 2008 when six ex-lead artists from Criterion Games’ Burnout franchise decided to form their own team to provide artwork to other developers. With the advent of the mobile gaming market, they opted to develop their own titles and Fireproof Games was born in January 2012. According to commercial director Barry Meade in an interview with The Guardian, the goal with The Room was to ‘make the best iOS game we could, not just try to make a big consoles game for iOS’ as they wanted to emphasise the use of touchscreen in its own unique way.
I’d first heard about The Room whilst writing an article on BAFTA’s 2013 British Academy Games Awards and further research revealed that it had received a lot of praise from both gamers and critics. So, when W1ngman recently won a new iPad in a competition (lucky bastard) and was looking on the Apple App Store for something to play, I suggested this game to him. After watching him work through the tutorial I couldn’t tear myself away, so we ended up completing the title together that afternoon – and I have to say that it’s one of the best puzzle games I’ve played this year.
The game begins with a large, metal safe – but how do you get in?
The Room begins with players standing in front of a large metal safe in a darkened room. An envelope on top contains a brass key which is added to your inventory, along with a letter advising that it contains the answers you seek along with something unique and powerful. You find a domed, circular box nearby with a lid that rotates, aligning a keyhole; and inside is an eyepiece along with a riddle. Here is where your journey begins.
This title is an especially fine example of the escape-the-room type of puzzle game. It’s played out in a single location where you handle contraptions on the exterior of an ornate box to uncover other containers within and dig further into the mysteries they hold. As you make your way further inside, you’ll find messages from the box’s former owner who reveals hints about the discovery that led him to hide away a potent artefact. Just as his writings suggest he was inexorably drawn to it even as he grew fearful of its nature, players will be driven by their compulsion to slide back one more panel, replace one last cog, unlock one final mechanism, just to see what’s inside the box.
Personally I found the storyline very intriguing and felt that it added to the unsettling atmosphere of The Room, although I would have liked a bit more background or detail about the box’s former owner to flesh it out a little. W1ngman however didn’t really understand the story or exactly what was going on, other than that the goal was to get inside a box; but this wasn’t enough to put him off seeing the title through to the end and, for someone who doesn’t usually do puzzle games, he actually rather enjoyed it.
Handling objects in The Room is a tactile experience that simulates real life actions: keys need to be turned, dials twisted and switches need to be flipped. It’s a clever way of dragging players in, allowing them to fiddle with and pull at the boxes as they try to work out what they need to do next. The only minor gripe here is with the view; after double-tapping the screen to zoom in, a pinch to zoom back out again seems slightly counter-intuitive.
Puzzles layered upon puzzles, each one is a mystery.
The game excels in layering puzzles upon further puzzles. When you find a key, you might need to rotate its sections to make it fit into a keyhole; as you place cogs into a gear system, you may need to reposition some of them at a later stage in order to progress; and some inventory items need to be examined more closely to uncover the secrets they conceal. There’s also an element of magic with an eyepiece discovered early on, which reveals otherwise hidden diagrams and objects that are needed to solve certain challenges. This adds a nice dimension to the gameplay and the way it changes an old phenakistoscope film is particularly unnerving!
W1ngman felt that some items were a little too well hidden for him, but we only came across one puzzle that seemed a little illogical so it couldn’t have been that bad! We had to resort to using the in-game hint system for this one but a gentle nudge in the right direction was all it took to get us back on our way. Most players shouldn’t have too much trouble if they persevere; we’d recommend not resorting to the hints, as the sense of achievement you get when a key is manipulated and a mechanism clicks into place is very rewarding.
Using the eyepiece reveals hidden objects and images.
Some of the big-budget console releases try to create a mood, spending millions on building plausible, breathing worlds in order to make players believe they’re doing something unique and special. The Room manages to achieve this with only boxes and at a fraction of the cost. The visuals are stunning, from the realistic-looking wooden structures and metal embellishments of the containers to the luminous images revealed when wearing the eyepiece. The specks of dust in the air that are noticeable in the light add to the uneasy feeling that you’re in a room that has been abandoned for some time.
There isn’t much sound in the game, which is pretty much what you’d expect whilst being alone in a room, but what’s there heightens the sense of atmosphere. A clock ticks in the background as you try to figure out what to do next, and mechanisms whir as they come to life after you’ve solved a puzzle. It’s hard to believe that such a sense of place can be created in an iPad game but trust us: once you start hearing the whispering voices that get louder as you progress through the chapters, you’ll be just as freaked out as we were!
If it was a bit longer, The Room would be worthy of a 1001-Up.com award.
The ambient soundrack, beautiful visuals and eerie sense of the supernatural combine with the tactile controls to draw players into the world. It’s like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story: intriguing, enigmatic, and impossible to stop playing once you start. However, it took us only two hours to finish The Room and unfortunately there isn’t a lot of replayability value; solutions remain the same after completion and once you know how to get into a box some of the mystery dissolves. But overall, it’s an elegant and engaging game that builds a sense of dark experimentation. You won’t quite know where your search is taking you, but it seems as if it can’t be anywhere good.
It’s almost certain that The Room will be on our list of the best games we’ve played during 2013, and it would have been worthy of a 1001-Up.com award if only it was just a bit longer. We’re pleased to hear that a free expansion pack that sets the stage for the upcoming sequel was made available last month, and we’re certainly looking forward to getting a glimpse of The Room 2 at this year’s Eurogamer expo. Fireproof Games has us captivated.
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