10/10

The Lockwood family disappeared without a trace, and all that is left is a mysterious dollhouse in the attic. Can you solve the mystery and recover the Null?

What is it: An escape room / puzzle box game with a dark theme. The fourth in the Room series, this is as good as the third game, keeping the perfect quality of the gameplay, and tightening even more the cohesion between "chapters". The entire game takes place around a dollhouse, which, with the help of the eyepiece, you can go into and explore as a real house. This brings back the "one single box to solve" feeling of the first Room game, yet with the "multiple connected rooms to explore" feeling of the third Room game. The dollhouse has multiple rooms to unlock and solve, but not in an entirely linear fashion. You can have multiple rooms available to explore, and often times you have to keep moving between them to solve puzzles, for example you have to place the water pump on the outside of the dollhouse, then redirect the water within the kitchen to the stove, which sends steam to the study, and then go to the study and direct the steam through multiple mechanisms. Only when you're fully done with a room and you recovered the mystery box from it does a room become unavailable. This manages to bring yet another unique experience, with new kinds of puzzles to discover.

The game might be too scary for young children: creepy music, dark tentacles trying to grab you, some violence.

How hard is it: Moderate to hard. There is a great hint system that can nudge you in the right direction, although I recommend not using it for the pleasure of figuring out things on your own. Some secrets are hard to spot, and with multiple rooms available at one time, its not trivial figuring out where a new item you receive needs to be used.

How long is it: The whole dollhouse, 7 different rooms, and a nested attic within an attic final part, a lot to explore for between 3-6 hours of playtime.

Level design: Excellent. Well designed rooms and puzzles, a well designed overall dollhouse, mechanisms that make sense in this world, with a large variety of unique yet logical puzzles.

Quality: Excellent. Superb puzzle design, good game mechanics, excellent graphics, decent controls, responsive, good achievements.

Worth the price: Yes.

Most positive aspect for me: Excellent variety of unique puzzles.

Most negative aspect for me: Some things are hard to notice; having to put on the eyepiece to enter rooms.

Also consider:

The rest of The Room series.

Gordian Rooms.

The Eyes of Ara.

For more puzzle game reviews, news and everything puzzle-related, follow Puzzle Lovers and check out our Steam group.

[b]10/10[/b] The Lockwood family disappeared without a trace, and all that is left is a mysterious dollhouse in the attic. Can you solve the mystery and recover the Null? [b]What is it:[/b] An escape room / puzzle box game with a dark theme. The fourth in the Room series, this is as good as the third game, keeping the perfect quality of the gameplay, and tightening even more the cohesion between "chapters". The entire game takes place around a dollhouse, which, with the help of the eyepiece, you can go into and explore as a real house. This brings back the "one single box to solve" feeling of the first Room game, yet with the "multiple connected rooms to explore" feeling of the third Room game. The dollhouse has multiple rooms to unlock and solve, but not in an entirely linear fashion. You can have multiple rooms available to explore, and often times you have to keep moving between them to solve puzzles, for example you have to place the water pump on the outside of the dollhouse, then redirect the water within the kitchen to the stove, which sends steam to the study, and then go to the study and direct the steam through multiple mechanisms. Only when you're fully done with a room and you recovered the mystery box from it does a room become unavailable. This manages to bring yet another unique experience, with new kinds of puzzles to discover. The game might be too scary for young children: creepy music, dark tentacles trying to grab you, some violence. [b]How hard is it:[/b] Moderate to hard. There is a great hint system that can nudge you in the right direction, although I recommend not using it for the pleasure of figuring out things on your own. Some secrets are hard to spot, and with multiple rooms available at one time, its not trivial figuring out where a new item you receive needs to be used. [b]How long is it:[/b] The whole dollhouse, 7 different rooms, and a nested attic within an attic final part, a lot to explore for between 3-6 hours of playtime. [b]Level design:[/b] Excellent. Well designed rooms and puzzles, a well designed overall dollhouse, mechanisms that make sense in this world, with a large variety of unique yet logical puzzles. [b]Quality:[/b] Excellent. Superb puzzle design, good game mechanics, excellent graphics, decent controls, responsive, good achievements. [b]Worth the price:[/b] Yes. [b]Most positive aspect for me:[/b] Excellent variety of unique puzzles. [b]Most negative aspect for me:[/b] Some things are hard to notice; having to put on the eyepiece to enter rooms. [b]Also consider:[/b] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/20773/The_Room_Collection/]The rest of The Room series[/url]. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1285080/Gordian_Rooms_1_A_curious_heritage/?curator_clanid=25928931]Gordian Rooms[/url]. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/454250/The_Eyes_of_Ara/?curator_clanid=25928931]The Eyes of Ara[/url]. [quote]For more puzzle game reviews, news and everything puzzle-related, follow [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/25928931-Puzzle-Lovers/]Puzzle Lovers[/url] and check out our [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/puzzlelovers]Steam group[/url].[/quote]