I played the game The Room which was an extremely fun and intricately designed game. At first glance it seems to just be a virtual version of a live puzzle in a box game, but after playing the game, I realized that it is able to do more than just try to replicate the real life experience. In fact, I think, in the beginning when I expected the game to be a replica of real life, it fell a bit short. However, in playing the game, I realized that there were ways that it went beyond the real life experience.
There were a few game mechanics that contributed to the feeling of being different from a real life puzzle box and further allowed it to be a fuller virtual puzzle. One of these features was an auto zoom in and out that only worked for specific regions of the box. This prevented me from zooming into every area of the box and looking at everything up close, and it helped me narrow my search into only the parts of the box that held potential clues. This is something that gave the game a virtual puzzle feel since it was a type of assistance that wouldn’t necessarily exist in real life.
Another mechanic, along a similar vein, was that there were areas of the box that were a lot lighter than the rest and areas that were a lot darker than the rest. The darker areas were difficult to see and clearly meant that there wasn’t anything too important to be gathered from those areas, whereas the lighter areas clearly highlighted their importance.
I really enjoyed the mechanic of picking up parts that were found and trying to use them in different ways and areas of the box to get to new clues. However, I do wish that there was a way to make the use cases more ambiguous or make the tools multi-functional as opposed to being one time use hints.
I believe that via the virtual experience, multi-use tools and hints can come into greater play. This along with the auto zoom and highlighting using darkness and light is able to create a fun puzzle experience that goes beyond what having a real life puzzle box would be.
