by It’s rare that you find a complex puzzle game as ominous and creepy as The Room, which is why the new layers of intricate depth and unsettling atmosphere worked into its spooky sequel make it a welcome foray back into the dark. The Room Two scales back the challenge of its predecessor ever so slightly while broadening its range of puzzles to keep things fresh. And yes, if you play it alone in a dark room with headphones on, you will undoubtedly get a few scares along the way.
Picking up where things left off in the original, The Room Two drops you into another dimly lit chamber and sets you to the task of solving the complexities of the puzzles contained therein. Progress sends you further down the rabbit hole of unsettling plot twists and dimly lit environments, but the challenges in each stretch of the adventure are still the main draw here. Instead of focusing on one puzzle box at a time, you now must work to unravel the secrets of several interconnected puzzle hotspots in each setting. It’s a simple but neat twist that sends you flitting back and forth around the room searching and experimenting.
The tactile nature of puzzle play in The Room Two remains this series’ most alluring element. As before, most of the devices you tinker with are mechanical puzzles like boxes and chests, each packed with tons of secret levers and hidden alcoves. They transform in clever ways as you manipulate them, and the intuitive hands-on approach extends to other interesting uses as well. Building and using a stationary crossbow that can be aimed and used within a room is one particularly cool example; collecting the pieces to complete a pirate ship model is another. Of course, you’ll find plenty of straight-up logic puzzles too, and the returning spectral monocle gets frequent use here.
A generous hint system keeps you on track when flitting between puzzles, though The Room Two does feel a tad easier in spots than its lauded predecessor. It’s no less absorbing, however, and the fresh multi-puzzle approach is a great expansion of the brain-bending trickery that made the debut so interesting.
The bottom line. The Room Two builds on the original game in smart ways without losing the thrill or depth of its finely tuned puzzle play.
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