Analysis on Virtual Reality Experience, The Room VR: A Dark Matter

Official trailer of The Room VR: A Dark Matter

What is it?

The Room VR: A Dark Matter is a room escape game released in March 2020 by the Fireproof Studios. Being the fifth series to the renowned mobile room escape games, the company decided to develop their game in VR this time to offer a more fascinating and different experience to their fans.

In the game, the player is allocated the role of a detective investigating on a case of a missing Egyptologist. Through interacting with nearby objects and solving hands-on puzzles within a realistic environment, the player will be absorbed into the game as the truth unfolds before their eyes.

Why is it engaging?

Room escape has traditionally been a popular genre existing in mobile, PC, and even offline settings to cater to the needs of puzzle and investigation fanatics around the world. Among the platforms offering such games, the most immersive experience would be through a physical room escape game. However, the offline experience is rather expensive, and often lacking in quality as there are limitations to how an investigative environment could be recreated in the enclosed area. For mobile and PC settings, the graphical immersion was there but the absence of on-hands activities was rather disappointing.

The emergence of VR versions of room escape games was thus revolutionary, as it solved all aforementioned problems. Realism was brought through a 360 degrees graphic environment which provided the appropriate atmosphere to the players without having movement limitations in a confined area, and players were able to interact with the necessary items with their hands, instead of merely clicking onto some item with the tip of their fingers and expecting it to magically go full screen.

Even among those VR room escape games out in the market, The Room VR: A Dark Matter was an especially engaging game due to its excellent graphics that blends in well with the creepy surroundings, and smooth interactivity with in-game objects. The field of VR room escape has advanced immensely during the past few years, and The Room VR: A Dark Matter may not be the very best VR room escape game out there now, but it still remains as one of the top and a good introduction to the world of VR room escape in my opinion.

What features are well done?

  • VR-exclusive interactivity

The interactive element in The Room VR: A Dark Matter is remarkable, and the immersion experience is right on the spot. Players can hold onto puzzle items and inspect them, looking at the item from different perspectives or placing them into or onto applicable locations. One of the exciting cases of interactivity was when lifelike hand movements were required for game progress, such as holding a key, pressing it onto the keyhole, turning the key, grabbing the doorknob, and pushing it down to open the door. The 1st person viewpoint was also fully utilized in the game. Some puzzles allowed the player to have different viewpoints of the same locations, which would have not felt the same if the puzzle was carried out in over a flat screen. Despite the fact that VR is generally already room-escape friendly due to the nature of it in which view is not restricted and all 360 degrees can be looked around for investigation, the interactive element in this game did not stop there but attempted to provide players with VR-exclusive experience especially with the hand consoles and 1st person viewpoints.

  • Graphics and sound

Another element that elevated the VR experience of The Room VR: A Dark Matter was the quality of the graphical backgrounds and the appropriate usage of sound effects. Faithful to the storyline settings of 1908, the in-game objects feel antique, and the seemingly old texture further enhances this effect. As the player progresses further in the game, the scale and the quality of the environments and surrounding objects only gets better, and the player is pulled deeply into the game. The remarkable graphics were a result of intensive research by the developers, who referred to real-life buildings, objects, and historical records to replicate them as realistically as possible, which was reflected in the delicate modelling. The 3-D sound effects and background music certainly added on to the immersion aspect of the game by creating an eerie atmosphere throughout and making suitable sound effects when objects were moved.  

  • Minimal unnecessary real-life movements

One problem regarding VR games is that sometimes physical movement is obligatory. This may not be an issue for short games like those available in VR cafes, but as the gametime increases, extensive movements exhaust the players and limit their playtime, and the weight of the headset does not help either. The Room VR: A Dark Matter resolved this issue by allowing the players to select whether they would like to progress in sitting mode, which literally means that the player can have the full game experience comfortably on a chair. In addition, unnecessary movements such as bending down were not required and movements were limited to hand controllers, allowing the players to enjoy the game in space-restricted conditions as well.

  • User-friendliness

User-friendly settings were also observed in the game. There were no fixed HUDs in the game that blocked the players’ view, allowing them to immerse into the beautifully structured graphics in the game. UI only popped up when necessary, such as when items needed to be retrieved from the inventory or text information needed to be shown. The most appreciated component of the game was the easily approachable hint function to help players who needed guidance. The hints were very obvious and impossible to miss out on, allowing for a smooth continuation of the game. 

A user-friendly element out of gameplay was that the game provided multilingual services for non-English speakers, of surprisingly decent quality that did not hinder the storyline or puzzles. This was something to commend them for as game translations are often done haphazardly in non-English languages, leading to awkward game experiences.   

What features can be improved and how?

Although the game is one of the best VR games that is able to provide a captivating experience to the players, I would like to point out some features that could be improved on.

  • Limited content

The Room VR: A Dark Matter is a puzzle-based room escape game with a storyline. Due to the nature of the genre, there is no replay value of this game for most players. Furthermore, gameplay usually takes around three to six hours only, making some players feel that the game lacks in content. Another area of disappointment was that contrary to the previous series where multiple endings were shown depending on the user’s gameplay, there was only a single ending to this game. In my opinion, more endings or DLCs for additional storylines could be provided by the developers such that the game will not be a one-time experience, but something to look back on more frequently.

  • Limited non-puzzle item interactivity

A major forte of VR games is the possibility of being able to interact with surrounding elements, creating a sense of realism and immersivity into the game when combined with the 360 degrees environment. The Room VR: A Dark Matter has succeeded in providing such experience regarding items needed for solving the puzzles, but for objects that were not required in the main playthrough of the game, that was not the case. Comparatively unimportant objects were stripped of any interaction, given the sole role of being graphic backgrounds. This sometimes pulled the player out of absorption upon realising that the world was still quite limited, and their surroundings were mere graphics, especially when they were stuck. A suggestion to this issue is to add interactable elements to prop items around the user, which could be small interactions such as holding those items just to take a closer look or giving short text descriptions. Being able to interact with items regardless of their importance would also increase the difficulty of the game, which would eventually lead to a longer playtime, becoming another solution to the aforementioned issue – short playtime. 

  • Teleportation

The developers have decided that movements in-game would be carried out through teleportation, which may be appealing to some users in the sense that walking time and real-life movement space is saved, and there is lesser possibility of motion sickness. There are some portions in the game in which movement can only be explained by teleportation, so there is no doubt to why the developers decided to adopt this method in the game. However, it is indisputable that teleportation for a walkable distance is an unrealistic element that may cause disruptions to a user’s VR experience. During movements between open locations, a short animation of walking towards the area of interest, followed by a fadeout scene to create an impression that the player had “walked” to their destination could be provided. For users who would be more concerned about time wasted during transport rather than the quality of the walking animation, there could be an option to turn off walking animations to provide full on-spot teleporting services like how the game is now.

Conclusion

As a fan of room escape games regardless of whether they are on mobile or offline venues, I was highly intrigued by the existence of a VR room escape, and my expectations were met with this game. Although the playtime was short, the movie-like graphical presentations and interactive elements allowed me to be deeply immersed into the storyline. Despite some awkwardness with hand movements, which is inevitable in the world of VR, the console-hand interactivity in the game was fabulous and the experience was amazing. I highly recommend this game as an introductory step to those who have not experienced VR room escape, or even room escape games in general before.

References

[1] “The Room VR: A Dark Matter” Fireproof Studios. [Online] Available: https://www.fireproofgames.com/games/the-room-vr-a-dark-matter (Last accessed: 16-Jan-2023)

[2] “Fireproof Games” Flickr. [Online] Available: https://www.flickr.com/people/fireproofgames/ (Last accessed: 17-Jan-2023)

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