For Christmas, my family bought me gaming gift cards. This can either be seen as the best gift ever or an endless pit that I’ll never crawl out of it. I haven’t decided which one it is yet.

Even though this is March I haven’t spent all of them. Before I buy anything I need to agonize over it for at least two weeks. That really slows up the whole process.

I did buy The Room then immediately brought two more in the series. If you know nothing about it, it is a puzzle game that was developed for touch screens. You swipe, tilt, and open an ever-expanding puzzle contained within a box. It has a moody atmosphere, bits of story enough to compel you forward. The puzzles aren’t the same over used ones I’ve seen a hundred times. How many games have to use key stuck in the lock puzzle?

The thing that drew me, besides the tantalizing hints, is the puzzles are difficult. Puzzles games lately have been aimed at the more casual player and are relatively easy. This is neither a bad or good thing, it just is what’s been going on. Those puzzles are really easy for me, since I used to play adventure/puzzle game most of my youth. I haven’t really found a hard one that makes me really dig in and figure it out.

The games actually get harder the further you progress into the series. The hint system gets a little less confusing, which is helpful, when you’re staring at something and not getting it. Usually the really obscure hints in the first game confused more than they helped, I didn’t use them. The other games the hints felt more on target. The usually made go, “Well, that was stupid.” The hints also didn’t give too much away. They gave a little nudge to get me back on track.

They did several things that I liked puzzle-wise

• The only resorted to a few math puzzles. For me is a relief, because I’m terrible at math. The one in the third game had me stuck for a good twenty minutes. My calculator is my phone, since I was playing on the phone it wasn’t working out great.
• There is very little of ‘shove two items together to make another item’ in your inventory. Normally that’s fine, but it has gotten badly used. When you can’t use basic logic they don’t work. Once I had a game have me put a cat with a balloon. I still don’t understand that one.

The game is horror. It is one of those slow slides into ever widening gap of insanity. There is actually a time when I got an item to get to the next puzzle and I didn’t want to use it. I was afraid of what I would see. It even made me rush around and try to find an alternative. There was none, of course. I even closed the game and walked away until later, because I really didn’t want to know. If I game can actual make me fear the result of my actions its doing something right.

I’m not much into horror for the spooks. Things that jump out at me freak me out and not in scared way. I prefer the creeping insidious doubt, fear, and terror. These games deliver on that.

One of the things I liked best was the fact that the all the answers make sense. Well, sense within the narrative of the world. Logical, taking notes, observing the world around you is all you need to figure them out.

These are great puzzle horror games that are really difficult. If any of that sounds, even a little be interesting grab the first one. On Android it’s a dollar. You can also pick it up on IStore and Steam.