The Gleam: VR Escape the Room

15 minutes of content

Out of all of the games in the Blue Entropy "escape room" bundle, this is definitely the shortest and buggiest. The is a "hard" "not recommended" rating. The only reason to own this game is because it came in the bundle. I finished this is about 5 minutes. The only reason I have more playtime than that is because of bugs that required me to restart the game. At one point I dropped my flashlight and it melted in to the floor and then proceeded to bounce around the entire universe at warp speed and caused the game to crash completely. I completely exited SteamVR but somehow the game kept running in the background and I had to force-close it from Windows. Some reviewers mentioned this as a negative but I did like the two jump scares in the game. I didn't find any of the puzzles that difficult which made the inclusion of a "hint" feature bizarre. As a warning, there is a part of this game where a door opens up that literally requires you to "crawl" in your playspace to get through. I liked this and thought it was a cool mechanic, but anyone that could have a problem physically doing that will not be able to complete this game. There is no warning on this game that this is required. This game feels like an itch.io demo that you would download for free. It feels like it could actually be part of a bigger game. I feel like a game done in this spooky style and atmosphere that was maybe 20 minutes or so long could be really good and definitely worth $4 or $5. With the Blue Entropy games it always seems like the developers have a really great concept for the game and flesh out an idea of what an actual game would look like in that style, but then they stop at the concept stage and just release that.

Short, dingy, poor to no collision detection. Lighting is wrong in many places. Ending makes no sense. This seems like a tech experiment/prototype that they threw up on the store. I would pass this one up.

+Interesting Spooky Escape room +Cheap -Easy puzzles -Constant Strobe hurts eyes -Jumpscares are more annoying and overused than scary 2/5 Easy puzzles, badly placed irritating jumpscares and constant bad development choices make this escape room a no go. If you liked this review [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/33220185-VR-Games-and-Tools/]Click here[/url] and follow for more reviews of VR titles. And [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/HonestVR/]Click here[/url] if you want to request reviews on other VR titles.

I have purchased games for less that had more content than this. I received this game as part of a bundle purchase, so I did end up saving some money on this game. Unfortuneately, this is by far the worst game of the series, however it is also the first in the series and the games do get better. You don't get multiple areas in this game like you do in the newer games in this series, and there isn't really anything to solve. There is 1 code box, but unfortunately I saw the combination to open it almost immediately when searching. The keys were quickly found after that as well. Room scale games have limited space, but that doesn't mean you can't put a few logical puzzles into the game. Instead of the keys lying in the open, they should be obtained by solving puzzles. As is, the game is extremely short and a pretty easy hidden object seeking game. (Do not pay full price if you decide to get this game; buy it on sale. At full price the game currently costs $3.99. There is about 8 minutes of gameplay for advanced users) Also: [spoiler]I don't think you can even escape, the only choice I've seen is that you have to kill yourself in the end.[/spoiler]

Nothing ground breaking, tracking is a little off too but if this is in a sale for about a £1 pick it up, makes you feel claustrophic, simple puzzles and some jump scares. Does what it says on the tin but don't pay a lot for it, very short.