HomeFeaturesThe Room VR: A Dark Matter
Room for improvement?
Image credit:Fireproof Games / Rock Paper Shotgun
Image credit:Fireproof Games / Rock Paper Shotgun
Oh all right, there was a slightly more specific reason why I wanted to revisit a game that came out just three days afterHalf-Life: Alyx. Upon its launch, there wasn’t much else like The Room on VR devices, a dedicated puzzler with high production values that didn’t feel the need to throw in a gun to shoot or a melon to chop. Now, there are bunch of fantastic VR brain-ticklers swimming in the pond, such as the time-travelling epic Wanderer, the perspective-bendingA Fisherman’s Tale series, and the ingenious automation extravaganza The Last Clockwinder.
Hence I was curious to know how ADark Mattersquared up against these newer and arguably more inventive titles. Fireproof certainly know how to make a pacey, intriguing puzzle game, and their VR spin on the formula adds a few fun tricks of its own. That said, as a VR experience there are some irksome design choices that betray the studio’s unfamiliarity with the tech.
Image credit:Fireproof Games / Rock Paper Shotgun
VR games take varying approaches in how they let you explore environments, but the Room VR is particularly unique. It employs a teleport-based movement system, but you can only teleport to designated points in each area. This derives from, where viewpoints are also preset, likely for technical reasons in part, but also to help guide you through each puzzle. In VR, however, the inability to move around freely is much more limiting, especially given how lovingly detailed the game’s 3D environments are.
Of course, movement isn’t the main appeal of The Room VR. That would be getting hands on with all of its devious contraptions. In this, A Dark Matter does a fantastic job. It’s all gears and cranks and buttons and switches and levers and dials and pulleys and knobs and handles and oddly-shaped keys, with every pulled, pushed, turned or twisted gizmo revealing another layer of its magnificently designed puzzle boxes. I will say, though, that the game would benefit from stronger “grip” feedback, as sometimes it isn’t intuitive, and you’ll often have to look at your virtual hands to ensure they’re in the right spot to grab an object.
Image credit:Fireproof Games / Rock Paper Shotgun
Image credit:Fireproof Games / Rock Paper Shotgun
It’s very silly, but also enormously fun, a real “let your hair down” moment even though the tone remains serious. The whole sequence operates on a different logical plain, swapping out hieroglyphs and clockwork contraptions for arcane symbols and phases of the moon. It also includes possibly the best key ever designed for a video game. I’d happily play a full game of this. Forget The Room, Crone Simulator is where it’s at.
That’s a joke, obviously. Fireproof Games should not, under any circumstances, forget The Room. The four flatscreen entries in the series are among the best puzzlers ever made, and A Dark Matter holds its own in creativity and goldilocks-zone challenge. Is it still the best VR puzzler around? Maybe not, and it remains fairly expensive almost three years on since launch. But it is a ton of fun, and not the worst place to start if you’re completely new to VR.
