Crimson Room ’11 Review – A broken port of the popular PC game

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On September 29, 2011

App Type: Uncategorized

Crimson Room ’11 Review – A broken port of the popular PC game

Our rating:

By: AXEL MARK

Version #: 1.0.1

Date Released: 2011-06-09

Developer: Axel Mark

Price: 1.99

User Rating:
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Crimson Room was an extremely popular browser-based flash game back in its heyday. It was a patience-testing puzzle game in which you wake up in the titular room, and have to find your way out by searching for – and piecing together – various objects hidden around the room. Suffice to say its release on the iPhone was long overdue and forthcoming.

The iPhone version of Crimson Room is fundamentally the same as the PC version. The game plays out from a first person perspective, in which you click at various points around the room in the hope of finding the necessary objects. While some may find this form of gameplay ingenious, I fail to see it, and think of it more as a random click-fest, where if you click frequently and frantically around the room, you’re bound to find the things you need.

The only logic that the game really requires for you is the same as is required from a child playing with one of those shape-slotting toys; you put keys in locks, cassettes in rectangular-shaped spaces, and rings in round slots. Finding some of the items around the room is often a matter of click on a random spot in the room in the hope that it takes you to a previously undiscovered space.

The controls on the iPhone version are decent enough, though it takes some time to get used to tapping on precisely the right spot for the camera to take you where you want it to. Holding down on a space zooms the camera in, though there is no point in the game where you actually need to do this.

Considering the game should theoretically take you no more than an hour to complete, then $1.99 is not spectacular value for money. I say ‘theoretically’ because there is currently a fundamental flaw in the game that means you can’t currently complete it, which obviously defeats the whole point of the game. Even if this did get fixed though, clicking almost at random around a room for half an hour is not my idea of ingenious ‘room escape’ gameplay, and this game offers little to people looking for to test their brainpower and not just their patience.

Quick Take

Value:Very low – Half an hour of gameplay for $1.99. Meh.

Would I Buy Again:No.

Learning Curve:Medium.

Who Is It For:People who think that randomly clicking around a room for half an hour equates to clever puzzle-solving gameplay.

What I Like:It's intriguing for the first ten minutes, before you realise how random it all is.

What I Don't Like:The glitch which makes it impossible to complete the game.

Final Statement:A broken port of the popular PC game, which isn't as clever as it's given credit for.

Read the Developer's Notes:
Find the way to escape from this "CRIMSON ROOM '11"

Tap on the screen to get items for escape.

Ranking is determined by the number of taps.

"CRIMSON ROOM '11" is the iPhone version of "CRIMSON ROOM", the browser version, getting more than 800 million page views from 150 countries in the world since 2004.
This iPhone version has arrived with new mysteries.

Article By

I'm an up-and-coming freelance writer (or so I like to think) specialising in film, apps and gaming. Aside from writing app reviews on what sometimes feels like a mass scale, I've also contributed work to The Independent and IGN.com, and am on the writing team of the popular Lifestyle blog, WhatCulture.com. Like what you see? Follow me on Twitter @Rob_Zed and get in touch!

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