With Seven Doors, Railway Islands, Papetura and the PSVR2 port of Tentacular, we’re kicking the week off with a look at four interesting ports of games with a puzzle element to them.
Seven Doors review (PS5)
Soedesco, together with developer Indigo Studios, launched Seven Doors on Steam back in 2020, and has just released console ports for the game. Essentially structured like an escape room adventure with (you guessed it) seven different doors with puzzle challenges behind them. It’s available for a budget price, but is it worth it?
The conundrums behind those seven doors are loosely connected with a story, though this narrative doesn’t really come into play until the very end. Until then, each room has its own unique look and feel that can be considered a standalone challenge, though progression through them is linear – you need to find a golden skull each time to progress. But while there’s consistency in that sense, the actual puzzles and room themes are diverse.
There are moments where Seven Doors has a bit of an identity crisis though, and that’s where it deviates from being an escape room/puzzle adventure and starts to rely on things like jumping and timing. If you’re here for the puzzles, you’re not going to enjoy those challenges. If you’re here for puzzle platforming, you’ll find them too clunky to control. For some atmospheric puzzling with decent production values for its price, Seven Doors is a nice puzzle adventure though, with some well realized rooms and puzzles and even a nice twist near the end of the game.
Railway Islands review (PS4)
Originally developed by Moraes Game Studio for Steam but released for consoles now through QUByte, Railway Islands is a cute little diorama-style puzzle game with a deceptively simple concept that’s easy to learn but has some tricky challenges to master. We played it on a PlayStation 4.
The overall idea for Railway Islands is simple – you have a small island made up out of hexagon-shaped tiles, and you have to place/rotate these tiles so that a little train can roll along past all the stations and towards the exit, which is a tunnel. With fifty levels to tackle, there are a few hours of puzzles in the game, though you’ll go through the initial batch quite quickly.
Controls are simple – you can select two tiles to have them swap places, or you can rotate them. To appreciate the train diorama-like visuals of Railways Islands (and get a better view of the puzzle) you can also rotate the island, so this is a simple and intuitive game to play – one we can see working very well with a touch screen interface too. The user interface never gets in the way, and because the audio and visuals are charming you’re looking at a game that’s easy to get lost in.
What makes and keeps things interesting is that the game regularly introduces new track types to play around with – including bridges and splitters in addition to the regular straight and curved pieces. If you like games like Railbound, you’ll certainly like this one as well – though Railway Islands definitely feels more like a casual puzzler with its pleasant island atmosphere and slightly easier puzzles.
Papetura review (PS5)
Papetura originally launched on PCs and the Nintendo Switch, but has such a unique look and feel that we were excited when Feardemic announced they were bringing it to PlayStation and Xbox as well. We took a look at this Petums-developed stunner on a PlayStation 5.
It’s safe to say that Papetura is one of those games that blends digital entertainment with art, with its visuals that were based on papercraft modeling. The end result is a gorgeous though also haunting world, in which you control Pape, an anthropomorphic scroll with a surprising amount of character. You have a buddy called Tura, and a vision of your (paper) world going up in flames prompts the two of you to go on an adventure together.
Although it’s possible to compare Papetura to cinematic platformers like Limbo with its gorgeous aesthetics and puzzles, Petums’ adventure stands out as quite slow-paced in comparison to other games in the genre. And not because it’s too long – it’s one of the shorter games of this type that you’ll find. No, it’s a lack of action and the fact that you literally move slowly through this world despite a sense of real urgency that can be a little frustrating.
Papetura manages to cram a nice diverse puzzle selection into its short running time (of about two hours) though, and there are some lovely and innovative ways in which you can have Pape and Tura work together. It’s over before you want it to be though, so it’s good that Papetura is being sold at a reasonable price point. If you enjoy puzzle platformers with a great deal of polish (Unravel comes to mind), you’ll want to check this one out.
Tentacular review (PSVR2)
The first month after the release of the PSVR2 headset, we’re mostly seeing games that are ported across from other platforms, including Devolver’s Tentacular – a physics-based puzzler that we previously reviewed on the Quest. Content-wise, the PSVR2 version is identical to that one, with a good sized campaign and an opportunity to just play around with its physics once you’re done.
On a technical level, the changes made are somewhat marginal, which isn’t too surprising considering the game’s cartoon-like visual style. Your large tentacles can still feel awkward at times, but we really liked the haptic feedback that the Sense controllers provide whenever you hit or grab something, or when something shakes up the environment. They’re subtle differences, but they make the game slightly more immersive to play.
Another feature that’s exclusive to the PSVR2 version of the game is its support of eye tracking, which also adds to the immersion. It allows you to make quick eye contact with the NPCs in the game without having to turn your head, and helps with menu navigation as well. These are more incremental changes than anything though, and most of all you should just grab this because it’s a really fun VR title – but only if you don’t have the Quest version yet.
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