We all love puzzles and even if you say you don’t, I’m pretty sure you’re lying to me. Puzzles just intrigue the human mind and they’re something that you can’t really escape so you better start loving them. Some of the most successful video games in history are either pure puzzles or nothing more than puzzles in disguise – take Tetris and the Angry Birds series, all puzzles. They ask more of your brain than other games and they tax your mind differently as well. Read on to take a look at a very popular puzzle game for Android: 100 rooms.
Description: 100 Rooms is a puzzler that rolls on quickly after you complete each level and for every level that you do complete there’s an even more difficult one waiting for you. The levels that the game throw out you are rooms, one after the other, you’re placed in the centre of these rooms and the objective is to get out by solving the puzzle of whatever lock there is on the door. You’ll have to look around and piece objects that you find together in order to help yourself get out. It gets harder as you go on and no two levels are the same, it can be quite tricky at times so let’s take a look at how it works shall we?
How it Works: All you have to do is to go ahead and install the app from the Play Store here to get started. After you open the app you’ll be greeted with the menu screen and to get started on 100 Rooms, you have to enter the room on the left by touching it:
Once you’re in to a puzzle room you can move around the room by hitting the left and right buttons, to zoom in just double-tap an area and to then zoom out again just hit the down arrow. A nice touch here is that the app explains this to new users in its hints screen:
To solve the puzzles of a room you have to look around and think “what’s under this plant pot?” then touch the plant pot to see if there’s anything underneat it. Often what you’ll find is a piece of something that will either open the door or help you on your way to opening it:
The way in which a door is opened varies from room to room, the first level asks you to build a lock for the door, whereas some require to find a key code for the lock or saw away a padlock. Either way, there’s a lot of different ways in which you can unlock these doors and it’s up to you to find out how. You accumulate coins as you through the levels and if you ever get stuck you can trade these coins in for help at the “Need hints” part of the main menu:
Opinion: I’m quite a fan of puzzle games and especially on smartphones. I find that touch based input is one of the most intuitive ways to interact with these games. In 100 rooms you’ll be asked to think about the order in which to do things, solve small riddles and memorise numbers. Puzzle games normally focus around one sort of game type and whilst 100 rooms does, it’s a little different each time which can really be quite tricky because after all, anybody can do the same thing over and over again.
Ratings
- Speed (4/5) – To say 100 Rooms is a puzzler there’s some swift pacing to the game that’s perfect for bite-sized sessions.
- Features (4/5) – 100 Rooms is a puzzle game that uses the same premise each time however, no two puzzles are similar.
- Theme (3/5) – Whilst the game scales to any resolution you want it to, it could look a lot better than it does but, it’s perfectly saleable.
- Overall (4/5) – A healthy addition to an already full repertoire of Android puzzle games, 100 games is a good offering that will have you coming back for more.
Pros
- Differing level after level makes it truly fun to see what the game will ask of you next.
- Piecing together tools or looking for key codes is worked into their rooms very well.
- It’s got a good swift pace, making sure to not bog down the user whilst playing.
Cons
- The graphics could look a little better
Conclusion: I’ve really enjoyed playing 100 rooms and I look forward to what new updates the developers come out with. Puzzle games have long been the same old tile-based things we’ve been playing for years but 100 rooms puts together elements of object-hunting and puzzles and brings them altogether to get your brain thinking in a different way. Whilst there are only 42 rooms in the game right now, more and more rooms are added to get the game up to that 100 moniker. It’s well worth taking a look and if you haven’t done already, go ahead and install the app now!