Can't play The Room VR: A Dark Matter? Here are 9 great mobile alternatives
Room for more?
As one of the most consistently brilliant puzzler series on mobile, you'd better believe that The Room is the real deal.
Across four games, Fireproof's locked box puzzlers have delighted, intrigued, challenged and spooked us in almost equal measure. And we've raved about each of them in turn.
Now there's a new entry in the series called The Room VR: A Dark Matter. It's been built exclusively for VR platforms, though, so this is one The Room game you won't be playing on your phone.
If that news has you feeling a little frustrated, or you just find yourself pining to escape the confines of a dark and dusty room for some reason (can't think why), here's a run down of the four preceding games and why you should play them. Those of you who haven't played all of them have the perfect opportunity to fill in the blanks, and you don't need to wear a silly hat to do so.
But for those of you that are fully versed on The Room series, there are other games on the App Store an Google Play Store that scratch the same itch. We're included five of the confounding suckers in our round-up of the best alternatives to The Room VR: A Dark Matter.
1
The Room
Let's start with the obvious ones. The Room series kicked off right here way back in 2012.
If The Room VR: A Dark Matter is your first encounter with The Room series, this is your natural next step. It's a different storyline to the recent game, but it retains the same core gameplay with the same obsessive focus on clockwork contraptions.
The Room still holds up beautifully today. Play it before anything else on this list.
2
The Room 2
The next game you should play after The Room is, quite logically, The Room Two. Its story follows on from The Room, so there's a narrative imperative to playing the games in sequence.
We wouldn't necessarily say that this is a better game than the original - there was much to be said for the original's focused 'box within a box within a box' structure - but it's certainly more varied and ambitious.
There are new kinds of boxes and new rooms in this sequel, giving you a new wider perspective on the puzzles.
3
The Room Three
The third game in the original The Room series continues the story from the first two games, but it widens the scope and interconnects its various puzzle elements in a way that signals a more ambitious shift for the series.
Puzzles are now littered across multiple rooms, and you're interacting with more exotic objects than mere locked boxes. Some of these objects require you to use multiple fingers simultaneously.
Basically, it's The Room going for a wander, and discovering some cool new avenues that would be explored further in the next game.
4
The Room: Old Sins
The Room: Old Sins is the culmination of everything Fireproof has learned from the previous three games.
It takes The Room Three's widening out into new rooms and objects and refines it for a more focused experience. Key to this is a spooky doll's house that serves as the game's hub, as well as a giant puzzle in its own right.
Just to be clear, you should definitely play all four The Room games. But if you only have the time or inclination to commit to one, it should probably be The Room: Old Sins.
5
The House of Da Vinci
How about if you've rinsed The Room series for all its worth and still want more? You could do worse than check out The House of Da Vinci and its sequel.
This is easily the most direct lift from The Room, with a strikingly similar design. You might play as Leonardo Da Vinci's apprentice, but mechanically you're doing many of the same things as you did in Fireproof's game.
That means unlocking intricate contraptions and following a breadcrumb trail laid by a mysteriously absent mentor. There's even an eyeglass gizmo that lets you see hidden elements.
6
Forever Lost
Forever Lost has clearly been inspired by The Room, with a series of first person mechanical puzzles and a spooky atmosphere.
However, it's a little more expansive than Fireproof's games. Here you're escaping from rooms rather than trying to break into boxes.
This a game with multiple episodes, and the good news is that it improves as it goes along, with more variety and sharper presentation in episodes two and three.
7
Agent A
Agent A is another classy escape-the-room puzzler, with all the keys and combinations and secret compartments that suggests.
However, it ditches the spooky histrionics of The Room and its disciples in favour of a sharp, super-stylised '60s secret agent pastiche.
It also borrows liberally from the point-and-click adventure genre, which in turn provided a lot of the source material for The Room.
8
The Witness
Want to take your first person puzzle solving to a whole new level of complexity? The Witness is a great next step - but it's quite a big one.
The game is packed full of tactile locked box puzzles, but here those locked boxes are large structures littered over an open island that can be freely explored. Solving those conundrums involves a specific type of line-drawing puzzle, too, but it takes you in a surprising number of directions.
The Witness is a far brighter, more expansive, and more abstract first person puzzler than The Room, but it scratches a similar inquisitive itch.
9
Mysterious AR
Perhaps you're specifically curious about the tactile interplay between puzzles and enhanced reality in The Room VR: A Dark Matter. Mysterious AR takes The Room template and applies a layer of augmented reality (AR) magic to it, courtesy of Apple's ARKit.
Essentially, the locked boxes here sit on your kitchen table (or any other flat surface), and you literally move your phone around to get a new angle on the conundrum.
Is it as atmospheric or polished The Room? Of course not, but the whole AR angle is interesting and makes a great deal of sense.