Nintendo Switch Review Code Provided by SOEDESCO
Puzzle games come in all sizes and offer a variety of different ways to tease the player’s brain to think through problems. Indigo Studios and SOEDESCO delivered a short puzzle experience in 2020 when they originally released Seven Doors on Steam. Now, they have brought this title over to a variety of console platforms and added a little more content to it. Let’s take a look and see how the experience transfers to consoles.
Gameplay
The game starts you out in a hallway which will soon become a familiar sight. At the end of the hallway are double doors that lead into the first room. On the other end of the room is another set of double doors with another hallway behind it that will take you to the next room. Each room has its own environment which goes right along with the style of the puzzle that you need to solve within it.
They start off with a simple observation puzzle and from there each room will gradually get harder to solve. As the game name implies, there are seven doors to go through meaning seven rooms with their own puzzle type to solve. However, they added some extra rooms after you beat the initial game and this leads to three more puzzles.
As far as difficulty goes, there are a total of four rooms (extra content included) that are pretty difficult to solve. The rest just require patience and standard puzzle-solving thought processes. However, do be ready for a solid variety of puzzle types because each room truly brought its own style that required its own way of thinking.
Audio and Visual
Both of these aspects together put a pretty standard aesthetic for the game. The music was all pretty low-keyed and set just to fill in the background while you solve puzzles, which is all you really want while thinking through processes. Visually speaking, the graphics aren’t anything amazing but they do a good enough job to fill out the rooms with their own styles.
What It Could Have Done Better
The controls to the game simply aren’t smooth. If you don’t mind moving slowly, then it will be fine, but when you want to have your character run, you will have some issues. You can hold down a trigger to start running, but even with that, it seemed like the best I could pull off was short sprints over and over. It isn’t a big deal since each room isn’t large, but it’s still frustrating.
While most rooms had a pretty clear task and goal, there were a couple that did not clearly show what the player is supposed to do. It doesn’t take long to figure it out, but it seems strange that there wasn’t a clue of any kind in some rooms.
Verdict
Seven Doors is a neat little puzzle game, even though it is short. I would imagine on PC, the controls would be smooth with the use of the mouse instead of an analog stick, but they could have done a bit better on the controls in this port. Even so, the game ran fine on a console without visual glitches or other problems. Adding that extra bit of content, which was updated onto the PC version as well, was a nice touch to make the game a little longer and offer something new for console players too. Given it is only $4.99, this is a game that is worth recommending to puzzle fans.
Seven Doors is now available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch.
