THE ROOM VR:A DARK MATTER

Get inside Fireproof Games’ puzzle boxes like never before

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We reach out, grab the turntable the puzzle box sits on, and spin it idly, thinking. The air almost feels chilly. A light in the ceiling of the large stone chamber in the British Institute Of Archeology occasionally sparks, interrupting our thoughts, in which hieroglyphs dance. Two sides of the box feature symbols on parallel rails; it is clear we are supposed to slide the Eye Of Horus underneath one of the posed Egyptians, but which one? Suddenly, a flash – not the broken light, but a memory of where we saw a potential clue. And we’re off to the other side of a room, poring over a stone tablet riddled with keyholes, sockets, and carvings. It’s a treasure hunt-cum-escape-room game that feels more real than any we’ve ever played before.

The Room feels like a concept made for VR. It wasn’t, of course – the puzzle-box game was originally developed for iOS, Fireproof’s first release as a new studio formed by a group of Criterion veterans. Fireproof needed something inexpensive to develop, something that would prove its artistic chops; Apple’s desire to publish and promote good-looking games that showed off the capabilities of its hardware looked promising. From practicality sprang creativity. “We weren’t really sure of the horsepower of an iPad 2, we were very wary about rendering too many objects,” creative director Mark Hamilton says. Walls were not in the budget. “So it was like, ‘Well, let’s make it dark.’” There was suddenly the suggestion of horror (which pleased the team, who were fans of the genre). “‘And let’s make it one object because then we can render that object really well, make it all shiny, and make it look like a really convincing wooden box.’ But then, what do you do if that’s all you’ve rendered? How do you keep a player on that for a very long time?”