Deceptive Games Ltd. is an indie gaming company that I've become familiar with over the years. Alone? (2016) and Silent Descent (2018), two of their previous releases, were given positive reviews in my curation, and while they passed me a code for another game called The Initiate, I just never got around to playing it. The company are known for their horror puzzle titles, and their most recent endeavour, Room 208, is no exception to this so-far-established rule.
In Room 208, you play as a psychic medium named Victor Rockford, who has been asked to come and investigate the mysterious room in a hotel in Fleetwood Vale. Poltergeist activity has been observed in the room by previous occupants, so it's up to Victor to figure out exactly who, or what, is causing the mysterious haunting. To do that, he'll have to solve an array of puzzles and visit different versions of the room by travelling interdimensionally via crystal balls. Each version of the room has unique enigmas to resolve, and upon resolution will give Victor pieces to the puzzles of other room versions.
There is a sanity meter in effect, which depletes the more that you witness paranormal events and stay in the dark. You can replenish your sanity by standing in the light. You also have a small lighter to illuminate the area and keep the poltergeist at bay. The ghost only really starts appearing more towards the middle and the end of the game, and it's worth saying that his character model is... hilarious at best. There's nothing spooky about this entity, and you'll probably catch yourself laughing at any of your encounters with him. In fact, there's not really anything scary at all about Room 208; sure, there's the odd glass shattering, vase dropping off a shelf, or book that goes flying across the room, but ultimately there's just somewhat tense background music that attempts to rile up the scary-factor. And as many of my followers always urge me to point out: yes, the enemy is a one-hit kill type.
The unfortunate aspect here is that you're always working on an unseen time limit. There's not a true timer, per se, but rather you have a limited amount of pills to restore your sanity and fluid to refill your lighter. These items are scattered around the environments, so while exploration is key, you shouldn't spend too much time exploring, lest you go insane or run out of light, or both. These mechanics put a bit of a damper on the experience that the game tries to offer, as it rushes you through its campaign. Of course, if you're pretty good at puzzles or you already know what you're doing, there will appear to be an abundance of these items scattered around, and you may even finish with some spare pills and fluid at the end, but just barely. In addition, there is no true pause button to this game either, as the game is still fully active when you are in the menu screen.
When it comes down to it, Room 208 isn't Deceptive Games's best work. Even though their first title, Alone?, had a plethora of problems, it still had a charming scariness to it that finds itself lost and unrepresented in this release. There's a much higher focus on puzzles this time around, with everything else coming secondary, and that makes it feel a lot more like a more in-depth The Room release, or any other 'escape the room' game. There's about an hour-and-a-half to two hours of content here, three tops if you find yourself having a difficult time finding some solutions, and the majority of it is simply spent combing over minutely different variations of the same location. It's worth stating that the puzzles are pretty good, and it's nice to play a puzzle-centric horror title that doesn't think finding keys constitutes as "puzzle solving"; there's a great range of unique mechanics here that'll tickle your brain, but be ever mindful of how long you're spending on each one due to the lack of pills and lighter fluid. In the end, you should only pick this one up on sale, and only if you're into escape the room style puzzle games with a horror undertone. Better luck next time, Deceptive Games.
[h1]Rating: [b]2.5/5.0[/b] - It's not awful, but it's not great.[/h1]
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[b]The developer provided a free copy of this game for review, through The Horror Network's Curation page.[/b]
