by Saurabh Pal

Created on: January 16, 2008

The Room' game is based on a very simple concept. Remember the hand held slider games where you had to manually move the squares to create a sequence of number or words. The game builds on that concept with additional images, animation, graphics and music. Let us review the game in greater detail.

The Game
In this game you have a teenage character locked inside a mansion. There are rooms inside the mansion and you need to move around the rooms and lead the boy to the marked exit using things inside the room. It is as simple as that! Ofcourse there are hurdles to this. You can only move a square on which the character is standing. Besides, there are blocked walls, fires and flooded rooms. On your side you have tools like keys, ladder, transportation phone and a bus to help you jump from one square to another. Once you reach the exit you move to the next level of the game. The objective at the next level is again to reach the exit and move to the next higher level but this time the going is harder.

The Graphics
The graphics for this game are pretty innovative. Photographs have been used to present the ambience of rooms and hence the name. At times there are some problems with the graphics which causes the game to stall.

The Sound
The music for the game is quite engaging. There is only one song that goes on for the level and at the end of it starts again. This can get pretty boring. Option exists to mute the music.

The Presentation
The overall presentation for the game is quite good but it is deficient in two areas. One is the lack of an online help and the other is the low quality of English language. The former prevents you from knowing what to do if you are stuck at any point of the game and the latter makes it very annoying to read English language with wrong grammar.

Improvement Areas
The game has several areas to improve upon. At times the glitches are glaring you get transported to the wrong room, the game stalls, back-to-lobby does not work everytime, the password is required in course of play and if you forget it you need to start again! The English definitely needs to improve as it is very apparent that the translation has not worked out very well.

The game is a Student Showcase Winner at the 2007 Independent Games Festival and naturally the game does not have the professional finish. Yet it is wonderful to play with and can get addictive as well. It is a clever game which gets your mind thinking and hence increases your agility. It is available at http://www.handmadegame.com/ You have the option of playing the game online or downloading onto your computer. I would rate it at 4/5.

Learn more about this author, Saurabh Pal.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.