The Room Two

Genre: First-Person Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

The Room Two (not in any way associated with with the Tommy Wiseau film) is a First-Person Puzzle game released in 2013 on mobile devices, then ported to PC in 2016 and Nintendo Switch in 2022. This game has players interacting with intricate devices with various hidden mechanisms, trying to discover the secrets they hide inside.

Once again, must as I said with this game’s predecessor, I should note that almost everything I have to say about this game is similar to both my praise and criticism of The House of Da Vinci, which I reviewed in 2019. However, it bears mention that The House of Da Vinci came out years after The Room Two’s original release, and it was clearly inspired by The Room.

In any case, it’s hard to deny the similarities here, starting with the core premise – you have been invited by an eccentric… friend? Teacher? Crazy old uncle? Well, your relationship with the researcher and inventor is unclear, but he has invited you to try to follow him by solving mechanical puzzle boxes he’s left behind. That’s mostly all the story you’ll be getting, apart from journal entries you’ll uncover as you solve puzzles. Having said that, what The Room Two lacks in story, it makes up for with personality, with this game’s puzzles split up into different rooms based on themes, and with the game diving into its occult fantasy themes much sooner and more in depth than the prior game did.

As with both the prior game and The House of Da Vinci, the intricate mechanisms are lovingly detailed here, with outstanding textures for different materials, really giving them a degree of realism beyond what was in the prior game. What’s more, the rooms themselves are also more interesting this time around, and even react to your work on the puzzles

And once again, this game re-uses the same controls as the prior game, for better or worse. Players can control this game either using Joy-Con motion controls or the Nintendo Switch touchscreen. Both control methods work, but it definitely feels like you’re not getting the sort of precision you’d want in these controls, and sometimes this makes it a bit overly difficult to interact with parts of the puzzle box. On the bright side of things, this game includes a helpful hint feature for players who get stuck.

Overall, I think this sequel’s improvements to the presentation may make it the best game of its kind, but once again, one of the issues of the previous game bears its head here – length. The Room Two can be completed in 3-4 hours, and while that’s not terrible, it’s roughly half the length of The House of Da Vinci.

Overall, I still think The Room Two is an exceptional Puzzle game, and while it may not be as long as I’d like, and the controls still leave something to be desired, it’s a marked improvement over the first game, and still well worth getting for anyone who likes this sort of game.

tl;dr – The Room Two is a First-Person Puzzle game where players interact with a mechanical puzzle boxes to try to gradually unlock their secrets.This is an outstanding Puzzle game that improves on its predecessor, though it does have some control issues and a disappointingly short length. Still, if you’re a fan of Puzzle games, this is well worth a look.

Grade: B+

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