The Room - and how I forgot I’ve already played it.

I love point and click games, and The Room turns to be first game of this genre that I played using my new narrative design ‘lense’. The irony of it, right? 

 The room initially gives impression of simple point and click game, with complex but not overly complex puzzles, and it goes parallel to the story from the inventor, who discovered The Null. The story is told in letters, he calls the Null a fifth element along air water earth and fire, he is describing it neither matter nor energy, and the non conformity of element is being emphasized everywhere. In the end of main game there’s a door that - next letter lets us know - we cannot come back to real world anymore. Its all phantasmagorical and logically illogical. 

I say puzzles go in parallel with story, because it is really so - they are not connected, and it creates a lack of narrative interation. 

My main love point from the game design perspective is how developers kept amount of items to use and scenery limitied, it never was a scene with too many details to keep in mind or too many items in inventory to be able to use. Its a very considerate chain of events that does favors to cognitive load.

Another beautiful example is the lense, the ‘other vision’, even though is not somthing new, adds up to puzzle part without breaking the immersion. The 2 views are interconnected and yet very apart. Its also not a measure to simplify game, as ive seen in few examples of bad design of ‘xray-like’ features, its there for a reson, to add the flavour. 

Its also beautifully graphically and audibly thought through - the way camera moves, the tactyle feedback of actions, the eery background music, the interface, including hints that arent overwhelming but keep player from googling the solutions. 

And Ive already mentioned my main critical point - the letters add no meaning to the puzzles, and the puzzles add no meaning to the story. 

So with standard disclaimer - not as critique but as exercise, following advice of someone with narrative design experience, what i would do better in this game: 

 I would add the entwined meaning to the letters - maybe some quest information hints, or make it related to the location or describe what is this box we are opening - what is that subject? why we need to get inside of it? Spoiler alert - even in second part the connection of letters and rooms is much more obious. 

The irony remains: I needed a new narrative lense to see why a game about a magic lense didn't stick in my memory. On to the next room.