Tuesday, September 25, 2012

100 Rooms Android Game review

I'll start with a warning - this is not a walkthrough, but believe me I can understand why you'd need one.

100 rooms is a free ad-supported game that is available on the Android Marketplace; the basic premise is simple - you are trapped in a room and need to use the items around you to open the door and leave.

You use the arrows at the edges of the screen to move around a room (or even two at times) and then jab to put something in the 16 slot inventory that sits at the bottom of the screen. Jab an inventory item to select it so it can be used with another on-screen item; or jab twice to get a larger view of the item which you can then combine with other items in your inventory.

As a small brain-straining/teasing game this would be quite fun; sadly after a few rooms it devolves into Monkey Island style item collection, and trial and error. You simply end up poking at everything on screen and trying to combine everything with everything else due to the contrived logic that applies. Oft-times I was left stranded because I was missing one component tucked somewhere I hadn't specifically targeted.

The interface isn't brilliant either. The initial hub room has an arcade machine that gives you points to spend on hints. There's a map next to that that allows you to replay any room. But nothing tells you this, you have to discover them for yourself. Oh and cleverly the FaceBook icon on the hub page is in exactly the same place as the "Return to Hub button" in each room so clicking to leave will trigger a "do you want to visit Facebook dialogue" box every time.

In all fairness this may be a better game on a tablet with a larger screen so you can spot the minor clues that indicate an actionable item. On a 4" HD screen - it's trying. Needs more polish.

0 comments: