ROOMS: The Toymaker’s Mansion (Steam VR)

VR Shop Score – Gold Award

System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £10.99
Comfort Rating: Green
Genre: Puzzle
Input: Tracked Motion Controllers, Gamepad
Best Playing Position: Sitting
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: PG

 

Description: ROOMS: The Toymaker’s Mansion is a unique puzzle game inspired by sliding puzzle and platformer games. In a twisted mansion made of rooms that slide like puzzle pieces, the player should find a way to the exit by moving rooms and using what’s inside them. As the player explores the mansion, various gadgets are introduced and make the puzzles more tricky and challenging. Set in a fairytale-like world full of magical objects and spooky stories, the player takes the role of an innocent little girl, Anne, who was accidentally trapped in the mansion. As the story unfolds itself, the player goes through the dark legend of the twisted mansion.

The game has 144 levels which are divided into 4 themes (mansions). Each mansion has basement levels where Anne can use her special abilities like using a cellphone to teleport, placing a bomb, and moving all rooms at once. «ROOMS: The Toymaker’s Mansion» is a long-awaited, official and fully realized sequel to Rooms: The Main Building, critically acclaimed and an award-winning IGF finalist game released globally on Nintendo DS, Wii, and Steam. Rooms: The Main Building has sold over 400k units since its release in 2010.

Review: ROOMS: The Toymaker’s Mansion has been around for a while, but now it has been given a slight VR makeover with improved graphics and some gameplay changes. The good news the game hasn’t change that much and the same puzzle-solving style hasn’t changed. It’s just it looks a lot better in VR and you get a good sense of depth with the puzzle house looking more like a real-life dolls house placed in front of you.

Not only are there 96 levels to solve, hidden puzzle pieces and loads of other hidden secrets it is also a game that has multiple endings! With a story that shrouds the game in mystery, you have to simply get through each level by changing the layout of the level. This is often easier said than done.

While simple in the design you really couldn’t ask for much more from a puzzle game in the price bracket. Sure, some of the puzzles (even some of the earlier ones) are devilishly difficult, but you keep playing because you know in the end you will get there. The VR aspect of the game looks amazing and really gives the game a new lease of life, but if you already had the original game I wouldn’t bother upgrading to this version.