Leave the Room

Intro

"Leave the Room" is a very short room escape game developed by WaterHorseGames using RPG Maker MV. In fact, this game can be easily beaten in five minutes or less on your first try. So it's probably going to be a bit of challenge to write a lengthy review for this one, but I'll try my best since I really need more locker space for gifs.

Story

You play as a nameless high school student that has been kidnapped and left in a locked room. A room that you need to escape from before the kidnapper can come back and brutally kill you for being a bad lab rat. So you best put on your thinking cap and find a way out in a jiffy. Or you'll be food for a lab rat.

And on a minor note I noticed a spelling error while going through my footage for this game.



As you can see the word thought is spelled as though. The game also includes a few additional grammar errors like using the word has when the developer should have used the word had, but as always I'm basically throwing rocks at my own glass house at the moment. And while these issues are mildly annoying they don't hinder the player's ability to understand what's going on.

Gameplay

You basically run around the room interacting with various objects in a bid to find clues or tools you can use to escape. And with this game taking place in such a small room it's pretty easy to find all of the clues in a short period of time. Albeit the developer does change things up a little bit by requiring the player to interact with a few items in their inventory in order to advance the story as well. So it does change things up a little from some of the other room escape games I've played on this site. And the way the developer used the waste bin in the corner was definitely inspired.

On the other hand the inability to pull or reset the chair is annoying since you need to use the chair in order to get an object you'll need for the game's true ending. On the plus side the game's short nature means resetting and starting over doesn't cost you that much time, but if this error was in a significantly longer project and I hadn't saved in a while I'd be seriously pissed.

Graphics

The graphics are serviceable enough for this project. They aren't amazing, but they aren't bad.

Sound

Oddly enough the game is entirely devoid of background music. On one hand I suppose this adds to the creepy factor since the game is so quiet, but I think an appropriate background song to make the player feel tense would have been better. Especially if it ramped up as time went by. You could even increase the effectiveness of the music selection by having the kidnapper show up as the song reach it's highest point.

Alas the developer apparently decided that dead quiet is far creepier. So the only thing you'll hear throughout this game are various sound effects. The bulk of which are tied to various objects you can interact with like a glass bottle.

Conclusion

On the plus side this game is serviceable, but it doesn't really excel either. For one thing the game doesn't let you use the fire extinguisher to try and break down the door. And that would definitely be something a normal person would probably try. At least if the door was made out of wood. After all, most people enter and leave buildings through doors so trying to break the door down would be one of the first options that would probably come to mind. And while I wouldn't expect it to work for one reason or another. It would still be nice if the game allowed the player to try.

And while I'm still willing to recommend people give this game a whirl if their looking for a puzzle game that is quick and easy in order to kill a few minutes. I can't deny that this game needs more polish and puzzles in order to be a great room escape game.