I love a good puzzle game as much as the next guy. Games like The Room, mixing escape room and puzzle elements, always catch my attention. Seven Rooms seems like a great idea on paper, but after spending some time with it, I’m a bit disappointed.

Seven Doors puts you in the role of an unnamed protagonist, who finds themselves meant to explore and solve seven rooms. Each room has a very short bit of narration by an unknown narrator, and beyond that, you are given no reason as to why you are there or what the purpose is.

On top of that, technically only five of the rooms are actual puzzles. The other two serve as platforming/survival challenges that require you to survive a variety of troublesome traps. The loading screens if you die are long, and you die in one hit. The concept is a decent enough idea, but it comes off as clunky.

Seven Doors can easily be completed in as little as 30 minutes if you happen to see through the puzzles quickly. Odds are good that you’ll have the most problem with the two non-puzzle rooms, and if there is any confusion on one of the less-explained puzzles you’ll have a play time anywhere from 1 hour to three hours max.

The controls are simple, the environments aren’t that special, and overall, Seven Doors doesn’t really have that much to offer. There are two secret doors that add a bit of gameplay once you finish the game for the first time, but even with that, you aren’t getting much more in the way of content. It is disappointing on multiple levels since I really want to like Seven Doors.

Condensing my thoughts on the game down to their base elements though, it just feels like a game jam proof of concept that never got developed into a full experience. The puzzles are very shallow, and the main difficulty comes from trap sequences that are just poorly developed. If your character had a sprint function, the trap sequences wouldn’t even be hard. The difficulty comes from slow movement and poor depth perception in-game.

As someone who loves games like The Room franchise and House of Da Vinci, I expected something similar. Seven Doors is less of a fully realized idea than a concept that never really got fleshed out enough. There isn’t a story to speak of, the rooms are visually bland, and it often feels like they re-used assets available from other games just to throw this together for a quick buck.

If you have been looking at Seven Doors and just can’t help yourself, wait for a sale. Otherwise, check out a video on YouTube, or just skip this one entirely. It isn’t worth your time, and it isn’t worth the price tag. I hate being harsh about games like this, but for the sake of informing consumers, save your money for a better escape room/puzzle experience.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Seven Doors was provided by SOEDESCO for this review.

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Seven Doors

$4.99 USD

2

Score

2.0/10

Pros

• Interesting Concept
• Simple Controls

Cons

• Very Short
• Puzzles are Ridiculously Simple
• Trap Sections are Annoying
• Very Little Content
• No Story/Situational Setup