The House of Da Vinci

Genre: First-Person Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: Included in The House of Da Vinci Complete Bundle, along with The House of Da Vinci 2 and The House of Da Vinci 3.)

The House of Da Vinci is an interactive first-person puzzle game that places you in the role of an unnamed assistant to legendary artist and inventor Leonardo Da Vinci coming to his workshop late one night to find he has left hastily-scrawled notes about an evil plot to use one of his inventions to wreak havoc on the world, with instructions to find your way through his workshop to assist him.

This is a great premise told in a fairly minimal style through notes left for you by Da Vinci, but the tone is delightfully ominous and couched in enough atmosphere that it more than makes up for the lack of characters to interact with.

The gameplay itself here involves you interacting with countless devices strewn throughout Da Vinci’s workshop to find a way to move further on. These devices are intricately rendered in wonderful detail, and one of the great delights of this game is encountering a new device and uncovering its secrets, or finding a hidden switch and seeing one of these contraptions unfold into some new configuration.

The puzzles in this game are superb, and many are solved largely through being observant and thoughtful. Rarely do you feel like this game is making you guess at what to do, and more often than not the answer you’re looking for is a part of a device you didn’t look at closely enough, or a tool in your possession you didn’t realize you could reconfigure into something else.

This game also provides players with two tools straight out of science fiction – one which allows you to manipulate devices with a sort of X-Ray vision, and another that allows you to look back in time to view earlier configurations of a device. I found these tools to be interesting, but I feel mixed about their implementation, since they only work in specific situations, and it’s not always clear which situations call for them. Often when stumped I would quickly swap over to each of these tools just to see if one of them hid a missing component.

Also, in a move that I am absolutely thrilled with, this game has implemented a completely optional hint system that works really well. If you’re stuck on a puzzle for any lengthy amount of time, the game lights up an icon to let you know a new hint is available, and if your skull is a bit too thick, those hints become increasingly more blunt over time. Of course, those not wanting their hands to be held can simply ignore this icon and try to solve these mysteries themselves, and the game doesn’t try to push you if you’d rather do things the hard way, but it sure is nice having the option if you ever find yourself stumped.

While I am absolutely delighted with so much of this game, there is one element of The House of Da Vinci that I find frustrating – the controls. Because solving puzzles usually involves manipulating devices in three dimensions, the game requires you to play using Joycon motion controls or, in handheld mode, touchscreen controls. You cannot play this game with a traditional control setup (so no Pro Controller). That’s understandable, but I frequently found the motion controls fiddly, especially since the controls for moving your perspective and the controls for manipulating an object are the same, meaning you’ll occasionally move yourself around when you’re meaning to try to fiddle with something. The touchscreen controls have this issue as well, although usually they’re a bit better about it since you’re touching what you want to work with directly.

While I’m disappointed by The House of Da Vinci’s frustrating controls, everything else about it is marvelous. The game looks great with wonderful devices to explore and play with, and the game’s puzzles are fantastic, with a great hint system worked in to reduce frustration. Those looking for a fun, unique puzzle game that lets them play around with intricate little machines will find this game to be just what they’re looking for.

tl;dr – The House of Da Vinci is a First-Person Puzzle game that has you fiddling with beautifully intricate, deviously-designed devices to find a way to enter farther into Da Vinci’s workshop. This game’s puzzles are fantastic, and the game has an excellent optional hint system to keep you from getting stuck for too long. The only flaw here is the game’s motion controls, which can be awkward and frustrating. However, the rest of the game is so good that they’re worth putting up with.

Grade: B+

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2019 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Most Overlooked, Best Puzzle Game

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