What a week of virtual reality (VR) videogame releases it has been. First, there was Valve’s Half-Life: Alyxwhich has pretty much stolen the show, then there was Paper Beastfor PlayStation VR and let’s not forget Down the Rabbit Hole. Another exciting launch came from Fireproof Games, bringing it’s puzzle franchise The Room into VR for the first time with The Room VR: A Dark Matter. And as luck would have it, the studio has provided VRFocus with several Steam keys for our readers to win.
Taking what made the franchise great and giving it an immersive VR spin, The Room VR: A Dark Matter has its own unique storyline set in London, circa 1908, where you play a detective called to investigate a mysterious disappearance. A renown Egyptologist has vanished from the British Institute of Archaeology whilst working on his latest find. As with all The Room videogames, this has occurred thanks to strange, dark magic.
Players have to scour the locations for clues, solving evermore elaborate puzzles as the campaign progresses. They’ll be able to employ some fantastical gadgets to aid their investigation, which will throw up a few surprises. Built specifically for VR, Fireproof Games has made the puzzles and the experience as a whole nicely interactive, employing the unique features of VR. Additionally, using a node-based teleportation system ensures the locomotion in The Room VR: A Dark Matter is comfortable for all.
Giving The Room VR: A Dark Matter a solid four stars, VRFocus said in its review: “Varied environments filled with detail, rich lore and polished puzzles prove that The Room VR: A Dark Matter is an essential VR puzzler for all fans of the genre.”
So onto the competition. Today VRFocus is giving away 5 Steam codes for The Room VR: A Dark Matter. There are multiple ways to enter the giveaway with the standard prize draw entry rules applying: Follow us (or already be following us) on Twitter or alternatively, visit our Facebook page or YouTube channel to get an entry for each. Winners will receive a code for The Room VR: A Dark Matter drawn randomly. The competition will be open until 11.59 pm GMT on Thursday 2nd April 2020. The draw will be made shortly thereafter. Best of luck.
In 2012 Fireproof Games launched the first in an award-winning series of puzzle titles for mobile devices called The Room. Offering a fantastical storyline involving magic and a Victorian-era setting, the franchise has gained a legion of fans thanks to the elaborate brainteasers the studio has thought up. Now that gameplay has been transferred into virtual reality (VR), specifically catering to VR mechanics for what is set to be the most immersive entry in the series, The Room VR: A Dark Matter.
VR is littered with imaginative puzzle titles which range from overwhelmingly difficult to charming and delightful. From bouncing puzzler Glyph’s precision and timing to the recently released Down the Rabbit Hole, there’s no shortage in this genre so to stand out the entire package needs to be special.
Thanks to its pedigree The Room VR: A Dark Matter already benefits but it doesn’t rest on its laurels. It takes what’s best about the franchise and expands into VR with comfortable hands-on gameplay and puzzles that are inventive yet not too overly complicated that you should be stuck for any serious length of time.
The storyline is an important factor in The Room VR: A Dark Matter as it intertwines the puzzles together, making progression feel relevant whilst building a desire to find out what is actually going on. Set in 1908, you play a detective assigned to a missing person case; an esteemed Egyptologist at the British Institute of Archaeology in London has vanished into thin air. As it turns out nothing is what it seems, making for an intriguing plotline.
So you start off in a detective’s office with a pleasant view of early 20th century London and this is the smallest area you’re presented with. There are four main locations in The Room VR: A Dark Matter which doesn’t sound like a lot but each one is bigger than the last and more sophisticated, so you do get a good 5+ hours of gameplay. This will also depend on how well acquainted you are with the previous titles, past experience does help with familiar puzzles popping up.
One aspect that will probably divide players is exploration and movement. The Room VR: A Dark Matter goes for node-based teleportation so you don’t have any freedom to wander around the areas. This does make the gameplay feel somewhat restrained considering how much the VR industry has progressed but it does offer several benefits. The first is primarily comfort, so most players shouldn’t have any issue diving straight in.
The other has to do with difficulty and puzzle layout. If you’re given full freedom to wander around frustration can set when you’ve missed something, especially if it’s plainly obvious. With a set number of locations you can move to there’s no worry about blindly overlooking a crucial clue, all you have to do is pay attention to the local vicinity. That doesn’t mean to say The Room VR: A Dark Matter makes things easy, there are some difficult brainteasers to solve which require travelling between several areas.
A core part of any The Room videogame was the special piece of glass that would allow you to see the unseen. This is where a big part of the magical element comes into play, uncovering hidden symbols and writing on the walls. Its location within the inventory is reminiscent of the other titles but comes off as rather clunky in VR, having to switch back and forth, especially as it turns off when you teleport. Adding the switch to one of the unused controller buttons or physical interaction with the side of your head could’ve been a little more immersive.
If you’re a fan of the franchise then you won’t be disappointed with The Room VR: A Dark Matter as Fireproof Games continues to improve upon the gameplay. For those that have never played The Room before, then its standalone storyline won’t make you feel like you’ve missed out. Varied environments filled with detail, rich lore and polished puzzles prove that The Room VR: A Dark Matter is an essential VR puzzler for all fans of the genre.
While Half-Life: Alyxhas dominated gaming news this week Valve’s sci-fi epic doesn’t support every virtual reality (VR) headset. Today sees the launch of another strong gaming brand, Fireproof Games’ The Room VR: A Dark Matter, making the leap from mobile devices to virtually every major headset.
If you’ve ever played The Room videogames before you’ll know they’re a mixture of magic and fiendishly elaborate puzzles which tend to revolve around a central puzzle box. As the series expanded these puzzles have expanded to include entire rooms and this is very much how The Room VR: A Dark Matter is laid out.
It wasn’t just the puzzles which were important in the franchise, the storyline also played a crucial role in creating the rich universe fans know and loved. The Room VR: A Dark Matter continues this by taking place in London circa 1908, at the British Institute of Archaeology. An esteemed Egyptologist has disappeared which prompts a police investigation and a step into the unknown.
Thanks to the power of VR, for the first time you’ll be able to directly interact with the puzzles, examining cryptic locations and using some fantastical gadgets in the process. The Room VR: A Dark Matter should also be fairly comfortable for most players as it employs a node-based teleportation system, so there’s no uncomfortable locomotion to worry about.
Many of the best VR puzzle games, such as Transpose and A Fisherman’s Tale, use VR in novel ways to bend your mind and challenge your intellect, so The Room VR is rather muted by comparison. But what it lacks in brain-busting creativity it more than makes up for with a genuinely gripping narrative, excellent production values, and just good old-fashioned puzzles.
Fireproof Games have been making entries in The Room series for eight years now and each of their past games are some of the best you can play on mobile devices, so they’re a studio accustomed to getting the most out of new gaming platforms.
The tricky thing about reviewing a game like The Room is that the sense of continuous discovery is the crux of what makes it so special. You’re more than welcome to watch the gameplay video above, which includes the first segment of the game covering almost 10 minutes (although I’d wager it will take closer to a half hour if you didn’t watch it and went in blind) but I’m hesitant to show anything else. Going in blind is crucial to get the most enjoyment out of The Room VR.
Everything from the voice acting, environmental designs, object interactivity, and sense of existing in a living, breathing world are top notch here. Many VR puzzle games whisk players away to fantastical settings to sidestep the need to make places look and feel real and lived in, but that grounded nature is what makes The Room VR so good.
You begin the game on a balcony overlooking a very average city in a very average old-timey police station. There’s a projector rattling, a desk with some papers, and a sense of believability that’s missing from lots of VR spaces. This is what makes the paranormal aspects and otherworldly interference feel so intrusive and mysterious: it’s as if the real world itself is getting warped.
In The Room VR you’re tasked with investigating the disappearance of a renowned Egyptologist after a police investigation comes up with nothing. The adventure that follows spans around 5-6 hours, depending on how quickly you solve some of the more intricate puzzles, and spans much more than just the confines of a handful of boring police station offices.
What really sets The Room VR apart from its contemporaries is how effortlessly it melds various other things into its puzzle solving and exploration. Games like Form do a good job of subtly implying its narrative and Transpose is almost entirely esoteric in its delivery, but The Room VR wisely unravels a truly Sherlock Holmes-worthy drama with you at the center.
Visually, The Room VR is a feast for the eyes. Playing on PC with Oculus Rift S revealed great details in the textures, like when reading books such as the one pictured above for clues, and everything in the environments was extremely rich with detail. Obviously the Quest version doesn’t look quite as good, but I’ve played it on that platform as well and have no problems labeling it as one of the best looking games on Quest for sure.
Perhaps the biggest fault with The Room VR overall though is that, like a lot of puzzle games, it does sometimes struggle with pacing and difficulty. As intriguing as much of the story is, it would often feel like I’d go long stretches of time with nothing but my own frustration with getting stuck to keep me company. Getting stuck in a puzzle game in VR feels a bit more aggravating than in non-VR games because taking a break or occupying your mind with something else isn’t as simple as looking away or checking social media on your phone.
Once the headset is on you’re locked in which usually means solving puzzles more quickly since it has your full attention, but sometimes it means your frustration is compounded instead. On the flip side of that, it does give you plenty of time to solve things without holding your hand, which can be refreshing if you enjoy brain teasers.
Another impressive bit is how deftly The Room VR juggles so many different atmospheres and themes. It’s at once a detective mystery, an archaeological adventure, and an otherworldly thriller all wrapped together.
Comfort
Some people will definitely take issue with the movement system, since the game is entirely built upon node-based teleportation and snap turning. But realistically it makes sense for a puzzle game since all of the actual gameplay can be done standing in place interacting with your hands. You don’t really need to sprint around rooms using smooth locomotion at all. Plus, it’s got the added bonus of eliminating the guess work of blindly searching a room for what to do next since you can surmise that important things are probably at each of your teleport nodes. That being said, it would’ve been great to explore areas more freely.
One of the game’s most important mechanics, Spirit Vision, reminded me of the Lens of Truth from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. When you hold the lens up to your eye it lets you peer into the past and look through into another dimension to reveal clues and traces within the world around you. You can see an example of what that looks like in the trailer thumbnail up above.
The Room VR: A Dark Matter Review Final Verdict
The Room VR: A Dark Matter is an exemplary puzzle game that not only serves as a prime example of what makes puzzle games so compelling in the first place, but elevates the genre via VR with supreme interactivity, excellent visuals, and a palpably mysterious atmosphere. It’s only held back slightly by some minor frustrations with pacing and difficulty, but is otherwise one of the best puzzle games available in a VR headset. It carries the torch lit by Myst and demonstrates how engrossing a puzzle game can be when done right.
We first got the chance to try out The Room VR: A Dark Matter back at Oculus Connect 6 (OC6) late last year on the Oculus Quest, but that was just a brief show floor demo. The folks over at Fireproof Games recently sent us a multi-hour long preview build so we got the chance to dive back into this dark, mysterious world.
Suffice it to say that, from what I’ve seen so far, it certainly seems like The Room VR: A Dark Matter could quickly become the new standard by which to judge future VR puzzle games. The same way it redefined what was possible in a puzzle format on mobile devices, Fireproof is pushing boundaries for puzzle games with the same franchise once again, but this time for the immersive format of virtual reality.
Considering the version I played was running natively on an Oculus Quest, I was extremely impressed with the visuals. That being said, everything has an almost noticeable layer of downgrades over the top compared to how vibrant and crisp games on PC VR can look, but that’s understandable.
The demo began on a balcony, which I presume is the very start of the game. It seemed like a typical police station in a tall office building at the center of a busy London street in the 1900s. After the first half-hour or so is when things start to really turn upside down, though. As it turns out, you’ve got to investigate the disappearance of a well-known Egyptologist.
The Room games on mobile were always a bit unsettling, if not a tad creepy, but because they’re mobile games that mostly have you poking around and looking for clues, the inclusion of some light horror thriller elements definitely caught me off guard. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it include jump scares or anything like that, but it’s certainly got an overwhelming sense of uncertainty wile playing it.
The Room VR is only really a Room game in name and thematic consistency since it doesn’t actually take place inside a single room or anything like that. Instead, it spans a multitude of locations and sends players on a vast supernatural journey to uncover the unknown.
Some puzzles are all about trial and error here. I have no shame in admitting that I got stuck pretty early on in the preview build. It’s always one of my worst fears when playing unreleased software for review, but thankfully this was just a preview this time. Whereas a game like Moss or Asgard’s Wrath would have you thinking like a gamer to solve game puzzles, similar to The Legend of Zelda, The Room VR is much more about environmental puzzles, leveraging items you find and use, and combining things together in creative ways.
Instead of moving some blocks around to power up a generator or something silly like that, it would be more like deciphering missing words on a code ledger to unlock a storage box. Having to think in real-world terms rather than looking at everything through the lens of VR, is pretty awesome
Admittedly I did not play the entire multi-hour demo for The Room VR that Fireproof sent me partially because I was pressed for time and wanted to get some thoughts out and partially because I’m saving the nitty gritty details.
The Room VR: A Dark Matter is releasing this coming March 26th, 2020 on Oculus Quest, PSVR, and all major PC VR platforms. You can see more info on the game now at the game’s Steam page. This preview was written after playing a pre-release preview build of the game for Oculus Quest.
Announced last year at OC6, the latest entry in The Room puzzle game series is a VR title and will launch next month on March 26.
The Room VR will be available on Oculus Quest, PlayStation VR, and SteamVR, and Rift headsets. Unlike many other games, The Room VR will have a simultaneous launch on all major VR platforms, which means that the vast majority of VR users will be able to play the game on the day of release.
The series has traditionally appeared on mobile platforms making this latest installment the series’ first VR title. However, although The Room series hasn’t ventured into VR before, the developers behind it have. Fireproof Games released Omega Agent in 2016, back in the early days of modern consumer VR. The Room VR is designed for virtual reality from the ground up and will be set in the British Museum in London, where players will investigate the disappearance of an Egyptologist.
While at OC6, David Jagneaux from UploadVR went hands-on with the game and enjoyed the demo, noting that the game had “a strong mysterious flavor” that should entice fans of the genre and the franchise. “Similar to the mobile line of The Room games, or even just physical Escape Rooms and VR-themed Escape games you might have played, it’s just as much about interpreting the objects you’re given as it is filling in the blanks,” wrote David.
We also got to interview Barry Meade, the Co-Founder and Director of Fireproof Games, while David ran through his demo in the background, which you can watch above.
Are you looking forward to The Room VR? Which headset will you be playing it on? Let us know in the comments.
Fireproof Games, the studio behind popular puzzle title The Room (2014), today announced its first VR entry into the franchise—The Room: A Dark Matter—is slated to arrive next month on PC VR headsets, Oculus Quest, and PSVR.
Fireproof says in a tweet that the game will be landing simultaneously on their respective stores on March 26th. The studio also pushed out a new trailer, which we linked below.
In case you haven’t been following along, The Room: A Dark Matter is an upcoming VR puzzle game that promises to deliver on the franchise’s knack for complex, escape room-style puzzles. The original The Room for PC has managed to nab itself a solid [10/10] user rating on Steam, so it’s clear Fireproof has big shoes to fill here.
We had a chance to preview the game on Oculus Quest earlier this week, and it proved to be not only to serve up engaging and cleverly-built puzzles, but an engrossing visual experience to compliment its dark, Lovecraftian story. Although we haven’t played on PSVR or PC VR headsets yet, the Quest version left us sufficiently wowed enough to say that it’s set a new bar for VR puzzle games.
Make sure to check out our spoiler-free preview, linked above, to learn a little more about why we’re so excited for others to play The Room: A Dark Matter.
The Room: A Dark Matter is an upcoming VR puzzler from Fireproof Games, the same minds behind The Room (2014), its beloved predecessor for PC and mobile, and VR shooter-adventure Omega Agent (2016). With the fresh VR entry in franchise, Fireproof has shown a new level of mastery with the medium with this engaging, wondrous world of puzzles and arcane magic—something that truly sets a new bar for the VR puzzle genre.
Escape room games were one of the first to find a home in VR, and its for good reason: developers have a plethora of puzzle styles to borrow from both physical and digital escape rooms and mostly a blank check when it comes to the sort of story and visuals they want to drape on top of it. The object-oriented nature of the escape room genre is also basically a natural fit with VR thanks to motion controllers. That doesn’t put all VR escape rooms on equal footing though, as The Room: A Dark Matterstrikes a satisfying balance between puzzle complexity, storyline delivery, atmosphere, and visuals, making for such an enjoyable time that I really didn’t want it to end.
I’m gushing. I know. But there’s plenty to gush about with The Room: A Dark Matter—especially because of what I saw on Quest. Here’s why:
Note: the is a spoiler-free preview of a pre-release version of The Room: A Dark Matter.
As per the game’s description, A Dark Matter begins deep within The British Museum in London, where the disappearance of an esteemed Egyptologist prompts a police investigation into the unknown. As an intrepid detective, you encounter cryptic locations, examine fantastic gadgets and discover an otherworldly element which blurs the line between reality and illusion.
At first I felt a bit like Indian Jones as I traipsed through a 12th century church to break my way into a crypt where I messed around with all sorts of Egyptian relics. But that Spielbergian flair soon wears thin as a more sinister, patently Lovecraftian vibe takes over. Although there aren’t any blatantly frightening bits to worry about (i.e. no jump scares or anything to grab at you), the atmosphere really starts to feel like something ripped from any one of H. P. Lovecraft’s occultist short stories, replete with locales you might envision springing from the late horror fiction writer’s Cthulhu Mythos. I won’t go any further so I don’t spoil the narrative.
The game’s linear story is punctuated with hand-written notes that you find along the way in a each level. These are useful to the overall story, but not in the sense that they will give you clues to how to solve your next puzzle. Rather, turning on your ‘spirit vision’ goggles, letters and notes take on a secondary function by letting you summon a ghostly view from the past for a short scripted interlude from some forgotten adventurer before you. More often than not, these apparitions leave behind key objects that start you out on your journey of deconstructing the game’s multi-layered puzzles. The goggles also reveal clues and other puzzles too, so you’ll find yourself toggling them on and off a bunch.
One of my favorite recurring puzzle is when you shrink down to fit into a keyhole, where you then go through a wide variety of cryptic mechanics to jimmy the lock open. I’m not certain why I’m able to shrink given the lack of context (uh, magic?), but I’m not sure it matters because of simply how impressive and inventive each puzzle was.
In some of the puzzles you’re tasked with fetching one item to unlock another, and these can be obvious from the onset. A dagger-shaped receptacle lets you unlock a box. A locked dagger is across the room that needs a key (etc). However as the game progresses, it’s very rarely a simple task of putting object ‘A’ into slot ‘B’, as puzzles become more complex and multi-faceted. Personally, the end result was real satisfaction and a sense that I was somehow clever when I solved a room, although I know it’s really both the puzzles and their designers that should get that compliment.
Outside of the game’s cleverly built puzzles, one of the most striking features of The Room: Dark Matter is its fantastic level of visual detail, which at many times felt like it was running on a much more powerful device (I played on Quest).
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Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
For example: the paper in my hand flops around as if it were actually effected by gravity. The green potion in my glass swirls around the container as I slosh it around plaintively. Lighting is excellent and the sheer volume of well-made textures really helps sell each room. Sometimes this high level of realism is infringed upon by the lack of full physics simulation; i.e. you can clip your hands through walls and doors, and only some objects are grabbable—it’s hard to tell what you can manipulate and what you’ll clip through, as the game only gives you a slight haptic buzz to tell you whether you’ve landed on something ‘solid’ or not. While this irks me a bit from an immersion standpoint, it never spoiled the game which was overall an awesome gameplay experience.
Puzzle hints enabled by default, but you can toggle them off in the main menu. If you leave them on you’ll still need to manually request a hint in the in-game inventory, so you never feel like it’s leading you by the hand unless you’re absolutely need it to. That’s where you’ll find your spirit goggles and all of the stuff you squirrel away in each level.
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
I’ve played my fair share of VR puzzle games that assume that I really simply must hear a hint every time I get something wrong, be it from an intrusive text bubble or a ‘helpful’ disembodied voice, and I can’t stress enough how much I hate being rushed through a puzzle when the entire point of a game is to let me solve it myself. A Dark Matter has really nailed that refreshing ‘hands-off’ approach, leaving you space to feel clever when you finally figure out some of the more complex puzzles by yourself. It took me a little over four hours to play, and I had a blast every step of the way.
One of the things I can see bothering some people (namely the anti-teleport crowd) is that The Room: A Dark Matter is teleport-only; you highlight nodes and ‘blink’ teleport over. I understand the need for this once you near the middle of the game and you have to traverse back and forth between puzzles often. Node teleportation also clues you into what’s important and what’s essentially just hollow scenery, which saves you from poking around needlessly. One thing I would have liked was the ability to turn off blink-style snap rotation, which is the only way to change your orientation outside of physically looking in the desired direction. Not a big deal if you’re playing standing, but it can feel a bit too jarring if you plan on playing seated.
In the end, I really hope Fireproof can garner the same level of success that prior entries in the franchise have, because I can’t wait to play more of their finely crafted escape rooms in VR.
The Room: A Dark Matter is slated to release sometime in Spring 2020 on Oculus Quest, PSVR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index & Windows Mixed Reality headsets. Check out the game’s Steam page for more info.
Fireproof Games, the studio behind VR game Omega Agent (2016) and critically-acclaimed The Room series of puzzle games, recently unveiled its next VR game called The Room VR: A Dark Matter.
The game, which will only be playable in VR, is slated to launch sometime in early 2020 on PSVR, Oculus Quest, and SteamVR-compatible headsets including Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Windows VR headsets.
Here’s Fireproof’s description:
Designed from the ground up for the unique capabilities of VR, players can inhabit the spine-tingling world of The Room and interact with its strange contraptions in this compelling new chapter.
The game begins deep within The British Museum in London, where the disappearance of an esteemed Egyptologist prompts a Police investigation into the unknown. Explore cryptic locations, examine fantastic gadgets and discover an otherworldly element which blurs the line between reality and illusion.
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Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Besides the reveal trailer and a few screenshots seen above, there isn’t much more to go on for now.
Fireproof Games is known for supporting mobile devices on all of its The Rooms titles, although this will be the first to elusively support VR. The studio maintains that The Room VR won’t offer support for Gear VR, Google Cardboard, or Nintendo Labo, as they are “not powerful enough to run the game.” Oh, hi Mark.
It may be warm still but Autumn is definitely upon us and that means doing away with the light clothing and grabbing something warm and snuggly. As the seasons change its as good a time as any for a change in circumstances and job, with some quality vacancies available this week.
Don’t forget, if there wasn’t anything that took your fancy this week there’s always last week’s listings on The VR Job Hubto check as well.
If you are an employer looking for someone to fill an immersive technology related role – regardless of the industry – don’t forget you can send us the lowdown on the position and we’ll be sure to feature it in that following week’s feature. Details should be sent to Peter Graham (pgraham@vrfocus.com).
We’ll see you next week on VRFocus at the usual time of 3PM (UK) for another selection of jobs from around the world.
VR is littered with imaginative puzzle titles which range from overwhelmingly difficult to charming and delightful. From bouncing puzzler 
A core part of any The Room videogame was the special piece of glass that would allow you to see the unseen. This is where a big part of the magical element comes into play, uncovering hidden symbols and writing on the walls. Its location within the inventory is reminiscent of the other titles but comes off as rather clunky in VR, having to switch back and forth, especially as it turns off when you teleport. Adding the switch to one of the unused controller buttons or physical interaction with the side of your head could’ve been a little more immersive.
