Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle Preview

Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle is the award-winning sequel to Rooms: The Main Room from HandMade Game.  Charming and whimsical with a dash of spooky mystery this puzzler is scheduled for release on Steam May 1st for Mac, PC and Linux. I had a chance to preview the game and I think puzzle lovers are in for a treat.

Channeling the creepy cuteness of Coraline, Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle follows the adventures of a young girl named Anne who finds herself exploring the puzzle filled mansion of a mysterious toy maker.  The game is very atmospheric in its whimsical art design, which won it the 2014 Art Prize at Indie Stream festival and its well composed music that persuaded me not to mute the sound while playing.   You are guided by a subtly helpful anthropomorphic lantern as you solve puzzles and piece together the story.

The unique sliding mechanic from its predecessor is utilized in Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle, which is reminiscent of those cheap kid's sliding tile puzzles with one missing piece, in a good way. Each level is broken up into various "tiles" or rooms that can be slid around the board in order to make a traversable pathway for Anne to get to the door and leave. The sliding mechanic is simple and fun, yet requires players to think ahead a few moves to line up all the rooms just right.

Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle adds a new section of basement levels to the game which are filled with puzzles for the more experienced Rooms player. Things get really complicated once you enter the basement. There are new mechanics being introduced to Rooms in the basement levels, such as a limited use teleportation cellphone, a portable bomb and the ability to move all rooms except the one Anne is in.  In the most challenging basement, all the rooms will always move together.  You can see how things can get complicated.  These basement levels add a lot of challenging gameplay to Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle.

The story in Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle is intriguing and nicely told through cut scenes. Aside from Anne's progression through the mansion, there is also a fairy tale-esque story  about the mysterious Toy maker (the very same whose home you're exploring) and a magical puzzle piece. I don't want to give anything away, but the story takes a turn away from trite with a wicked twist and unexpected ending.

Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle launches on Steam May 1st.  I certainly enjoyed playing it and puzzle game enthusiasts will likely want to give it a try.  The game definitely makes you think and is well polished.  The simple to learn mechanics and whimsical themes make this game great for puzzle solvers of all ages who can wrap their heads around a good puzzle and handle a creepy story-line.

This game was provided by the developer and reviewed on PC.

Will you try and solve The Unsolvable Puzzle?