I enjoy the genre of first-person, single player, exploration and puzzle solving in a Steam-Punk world. This is much like the play of "The Room" [ 1, 2, & 3] or "Myst" and "Riven". I hate to use the "hint" function but at times it was helpful when I got in a rut. When not in a rut, the hints were frequently "yeah, yeah, that's obvious. . ." Like describing what I'm already looking at. So they weren't disappointing "spoilers". It is unclear how many "rooms" or "chapters" are still ahead. When a new room opened after finishing a chapter, I felt Wow. . .Great. . . I get to play more. But, inevitably, it must come to an end. It's not clear if there are alternative endings. But if it matters to you, my first play through took over 7 hours of play-time. A great bargain for about $5! [and you don't need to pay extra for the hints]. I don't mind the cost for a well designed game, and I'd rather have the cost up-front. Just on frustrating feature: In using the 'magic eyepiece' it is unclear to me if there is a pattern of when it works or doesn't work. Is it based on what you need to do, or is there a "real time" time out feature. I usually expect my tools to work consistently, The intermittent failure of the 'magic eyepiece' was frustrating; I would hope that in an update that the designers will either make this feature work consistently, or at least build in some explanation of the on-off nature of this tool in either the story-line text elements or in the hints. Overall this is exactly the kind of game I like, and I'll by games that promise to be like this without hesitation. ArtimusA.

If you, like me, have played all of the Rooms faithfully, then you have come to expect the puzzles to be on an ever-increasing grand scale. I don’t think this was expected to compare. It was only after reaching a rather abrupt ending that I realized that this more like a short story compared to the epic novels of the first three and Old Sins (all four recommended as much as can be recommended!).That being said, The House of DaVinci had some really frustrating limits. Limited range of movement was among the first. The original games have a 360° view most of the time versus this game where it was only 180° views for the most part. Restrictive perspectives was next. You could only look at some things in some ways (compared to the ability in the other games to completely turn over an item in your inventory). Lacking the ability to fully explore a space hindered my ability to find the trickier hidden compartments. Too many times, I couldn’t just look around the desk to find the loose rivet. Instead, I had to pull away from the desk, move to the next space over, look back to the desk, and ONLY THEN could I hone in on the tricky rivet. Lastly, the inability to move freely within a space greatly hindered my ability to manipulate levers and slides.On the plus side, the game is still beautifully designed and the puzzles were entertaining enough (though they still lacked the strong reasoning and cohesion we have come to expect). Still, a fun few hours for the price.

It’s pretty good, the graphics are great and the game is challenging. They basically copied “the room” game mechanics, along with the eye piece, puzzle style and hint system. Although it’s a quality game, playing it came with some frustration. In many instances the objects you can interact with are not responsive enough and will only move/slide if you do it precisely from the angle they intended it to move. Some of the puzzles made very little sense to me and were not fun to solve. Also, I found the hint system to be pretty bad. It would often give you clues for thing that you’re already a head of, like you’re trying to solve some puzzle and the hint would say “have you noticed this puzzle?”. Sometimes the hint would say “maybe I should use this item in my inventory but where?” Not helpful. Also the hints would try to forward you to a certain location with an obscure description of it. For example, it would say “there was a protrusion near the golden decoration that might be movable” and I’m googling protrusion and can’t find any golden decoration on the screen. Lastly, the eye piece only works if you look at the exact spot, meaning you can’t just scan the room with it.To sum up, if you haven’t played the room games, buy them! They are the original and much superior. If you have played them and looking for a similar game, this would do.

I enjoyed going through these chapters, challenging myself to step into the mind of da Vinci. However, many of the tasks were not exactly intuitive, nor seem to have any reason behind them, other than an arbitrary pattern that was vaguely hinted at. Which brings me to my next point regarding the hints...many were useless and not clear enough to aid in solving the task/puzzle. Some of the puzzles were also very repetitive. Solving one difficult puzzle is great, solving the same puzzle with different formation three times in a row is stupid. Additionally, the GLITCHES arent exactly glitches, but the way certain objects move was faulty. In arranging certain objects in physical formation, the objects moved in a continuous fashion, rather than discreetly taking shape once moved into place. So the patter was correct, but the object remained just a hair off line, and it is not very obvious through the perspective of the player, which caused frustrations and doubt about the solution. This happend in every chapter, so it was annoying to keep carefully placing objects in order just to make sure they are actually in correct formation. For example, opening up a latch, the latch should move in maybe 4 or 5 positions over a course of 180 degrees and once its almost at the end, it should register as open, not remain 1 degree off line and appear to be open, leaving the object stuck and unable to obtain. Little details like this made it less enjoyable. Though the ending didn't really make sense, the overall game play was quality. I would give it 5 stars if the hints were better thought out and if the progression was a bit more intuitive about how to go about the overall goal.