The Hidden Room - Pyramid is a short-but-sweet romp through a Mesoamerican pyramid in search of treasure. It has recently come out of “Early Access” and the development team has made numerous improvements based on user feedback.

Your first task is to open two combination keypads to gain access to the work site. I immediately made a faulty assumption about a clue and went down a rabbit hole for over an hour trying to open the first lock. Sigh… After that, things could only get better!

Each room has a single puzzle that opens the door to the next section. There are about a half-dozen areas to explore and solve before reaching your destination. Puzzles are based on Mesoamerican culture (specifically, Mayan numbers, calendars, and glyphs). Armed only with a torch, you find cheat sheets at the beginning of the game. Other than these few pages, there are no hints and you are on your own!

There is a minimal soundtrack which has footsteps and environmental noises during game play. Voice-overs are used when you “think out loud” during exploration. I turned the subtitles on and muted the sound as I played. This was not a good decision, as I spent extra time working on a puzzle that I had already solved and missed the rumble of the next door opening!

The game autosaves as you complete each area and retains multiple save points. I am not sure why you would want to go back to an earlier puzzle, but the capability is there. If you leave the game while in the middle of a puzzle, you will need to restart that area when you return. In one section, the solution involved finding puzzle pieces and I was careful to clear this portion of the pyramid before exiting. Steam achievements are not supported.

I recommend The Hidden Room – Pyramid to anyone who enjoys exploration and puzzlers. It is crafted by two people and is a work of love that provides a learning opportunity as well as the chance to stretch your brain. Perhaps I am less informed than everyone else, but the term “Mesoamerica” was new to me AND I learned that vigesimal (base-20) numbering systems were created because we can count using our fingers and toes!

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The Hidden Room - Pyramid is a short-but-sweet romp through a Mesoamerican pyramid in search of treasure. It has recently come out of “Early Access” and the development team has made numerous improvements based on user feedback. Your first task is to open two combination keypads to gain access to the work site. I immediately made a faulty assumption about a clue and went down a rabbit hole for over an hour trying to open the first lock. Sigh… After that, things could only get better! Each room has a single puzzle that opens the door to the next section. There are about a half-dozen areas to explore and solve before reaching your destination. Puzzles are based on Mesoamerican culture (specifically, Mayan numbers, calendars, and glyphs). Armed only with a torch, you find cheat sheets at the beginning of the game. Other than these few pages, there are no hints and you are on your own! There is a minimal soundtrack which has footsteps and environmental noises during game play. Voice-overs are used when you “think out loud” during exploration. I turned the subtitles on and muted the sound as I played. This was not a good decision, as I spent extra time working on a puzzle that I had already solved and missed the rumble of the next door opening! The game autosaves as you complete each area and retains multiple save points. I am not sure why you would want to go back to an earlier puzzle, but the capability is there. If you leave the game while in the middle of a puzzle, you will need to restart that area when you return. In one section, the solution involved finding puzzle pieces and I was careful to clear this portion of the pyramid before exiting. Steam achievements are not supported. I recommend The Hidden Room – Pyramid to anyone who enjoys exploration and puzzlers. It is crafted by two people and is a work of love that provides a learning opportunity as well as the chance to stretch your brain. Perhaps I am less informed than everyone else, but the term “Mesoamerica” was new to me AND I learned that vigesimal (base-20) numbering systems were created because we can count using our fingers and toes! [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]Follow [b]IndieGems[/b] if you enjoyed this review and want to see more like it.[/url][/quote]