EGD: The Sadomasochistic Fantasy Of The Gratified, Yet Hopelessly Addicted, Prepubescent Heteros3xual Male

Review by meowmeowfurrycat on Monday, July 27th 2015
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Click to play Rooms

Rooms is a game created by textlabel

First impressions are everything. In Sploder, this usually translates to the title of a game (thumbnails are discounted because they are almost always terrible. Actually, I don't know why reviewers even mention thumbnails in their reviews. Giving so much space to such an insignificant detail is shockingly pretentious. In fact, since at least half of the reviewing staff is not comprised of complete idiots, I am forced to conclude that reviewers devote, say, an entire paragraph to a thumbnail simply because they have nothing else to write about and they're trying to take up space to make their review look thoughtful and detailed. What are you looking at?). It should be obvious that literally the only reason I would mention this opinion is because I didn't get a very good first impression from this game.


It's another platformer entry -- Rooms, by textlabel. What is a textlabel?


Um,


Anyway. The title of this game is Rooms. Judging by the appalling lack of metaphors on this website, I assume that Rooms is a game with a lot of rooms in it. Rooms generally tend not to excite me. So this game doesn't seem exciting. For future reference, a good title is something both mysterious yet strangely appealing. Take, for instance, Fifty Shades of Grey. Shades are shadows! Shadows are mysterious! Why are there exactly fifty shades? Who knows? It's mysterious! "Grey" is spelled using British spelling! British people are sophisticated! That's appealing!


Rooms. Rooms is a puzzle game, as far as it goes. Most of said puzzles involve throwing grenades at switches. Actually, all of the puzzles involve throwing grenades at switches. This is repetitive and blatantly unoriginal.


Furthermore, it's not fun. One section of the first level requires fairly difficult platforming over lava. Making it past is possible, at the cost of like half your life bar. Once you're on the other side, you . . . need to go back across. Then back again. And again. It's the same goddam thing over and over. There are also rooms filled with enemies. Lots of enemies. Who have ranged weapons. And are surrounding you from all sides. While you have no weapons. And one life. And there's lava below you.


Suffice to say, textlabel didn't test Rooms very well. The difficulty of the rooms fluctuates wildly -- some are easy, others rage-inducing. None of this was helped by the aesthetics: for the most part, the background was a drab purple (?), though it was actually hard to tell due to the utter lack of lighting. I died so many times I lost count, and often from the same thing.


I honestly don't have a lot to say in this review. Rooms is not a good game, and it is nowhere near one. But it's also textlabel's first platformer, and it's not half bad for a rookie. The basics are there: he clearly knows how to construct a platformer game, even if he hasn't yet learned how to make it shine.


Textlabel, this is my advice for you: Play more games, but also play around with the creator. See what you can construct by yourself. Use your imagination. And above all else, test the finished product. Ask yourself: Did I enjoy this? If the answer is anything other than a resounding "yes," you have a problem.


July 27, 2015