If you like puzzle games, here’s one that’ll have you scratching your head. Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle was released this month by HandMade Games, with a huge batch of room-sliding riddles for you to figure out.
Anne, a young girl who apparently hasn’t been told not to wander into strange mansions at night, finds herself in the home of the Toymaker accompanied by a talking lamp. (Don’t worry; that’s not one of the riddles you have to figure out.) Each of the levels has a series of room pieces that can be moved around like a sliding tile puzzle–but you can only move the piece you’re in. The pieces have different configurations of walls, floors, ceilings, and ladders, and your goal is to get to the exit door in each room.
Along the way, you’ll discover various other features: you can teleport between rooms with a telephone, push or pull adjacent rooms with a magnet, and blow up damaged walls with bombs. Some walls have locked doors, and you’ll have to retrieve the proper key first.
Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle has 144 levels, spread across 4 different mansions, and as you solve the puzzles you’ll get bits of the story of the Toymaker. Your goal, aside from reaching the exit, is to solve each room with the minimum number of moves, which will award you with puzzle pieces.
So far I’ve played through most of one mansion (though each mansion also has a basement with some new tweaks) and part of the second, and I’m getting stuck. The puzzles get pretty challenging–though I’m hoping that the “unsolvable” title is an exaggeration. You can get a hint by clicking on the lantern, but it just shows you the outline of the final room shape–not where each piece belongs or how to get it there.
Here’s the trailer for the game:
Rooms: The Unsolvable Puzzle is available on Steam for Mac, PC, or Linux, and is $9.99. If you’re looking for a puzzle game with a bit of a challenge, try it out!
Disclosure: I received a free download of the game for review.
