Review: The House Of Da Vinci VR
One genre that excels in Virtual Reality when done correctly is puzzle games so, when The House of Da Vinci was announced I was excited – as this series is one that has always interested me. I have now been wracking my brain in this Renaissance period puzzler, did it port well to VR?
Release Date: November 4th 2024
Developer: Blue Brain Games
Publisher: Blue Brain Games
Price: TBC
Reviewed On: Meta Quest 3
* Access Provided For Review *
Where Are You Leonardo?
The premise of the game is, you are Leonardo Da Vinci’s apprentice and you are searching for you missing master. Seeing you start in Da Vinci’s house and needing to solve his puzzles to find clues of this whereabouts. Where the game doesn’t have a deep story to follow, it’s great to have some to understanding why you are solving all of these puzzles.
My Brain Hurts
In order to find Leonardo you are going to have to solve some challenging puzzles, which have been heavily inspired by his real-life inventions and ideas. This also sees him providing you with some unique and special abilities to help you on your way, in the form or a switch on your gloves – which will allow you see some highlighted hints, the innards of some puzzles and a hologram of the man himself. To go with this you will also get dial on your other glove with allows you to move the holo-Leonardo, which again helps you with some puzzles.
As you would expect with these puzzles being inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci, these are not going to be straight forward or simple, and a good number of the puzzles left my scratching my head as I attempted to figure them out. You can see the hard work and love that the team at Blue Brain Games have put into these puzzles because, all of them are so well designed and made.
Speaking of the puzzles they have been re-imagined from the flatscreen version (released November 2017) to make use of Virtual Reality perfectly and give the physically and feeling of solving these puzzles with your own hands. This has allowed them to get really creative in the way the puzzles have been changed and designed. My own real issue with the puzzles came from how sensitive the moving parts can be, at times it was very easy to remove parts of the puzzles too far or spin things like dials very quickly by accident – this does not ruin the game but, something worth being aware of.
When it comes to the movement in the game, you can only teleport to be in front of each puzzle that is currently available, so there is no free movement in any of the settings, just set points you can move between. The team have also only included snap turning, with the point-to-point teleportation this doesn’t seem as bad and works with the way they have designed the game. However, I would like to see smooth turning be added post launch, just for those who are completely put off by snap turning, as this is such a well designed puzzle game that people should experience.
The Beauty Of The Renaissance
One thing that really blew me away as soon as you enter the game is, how fantastic the game looks on the Meta Quest 3. Every room inside of Da Vinci’s house, the external courtyard, crypt, armory and tower are all beautifully detailed, and designed to suit each set of puzzles. This is managed by using very high quality and detailed textures and a fantastic use of lighting – it looks so visually pleasing as you fire little fire balls across a dark room. I think with the puzzles being around set rooms or locations with loading in between each part, this has allowed the game to look so good on the standalone device and the team to maximise the use of what the Quest 3 offers. That being said the rooms did not feel small or claustrophobic, there is still a lot space around the points you are moving between in most cases – of course if the area is smaller, it will feel tighter.
With these beautiful looking rooms and locations in the Renaissance era, it is only fitting that the team have used music in the background from this time period – pulling you even more into the stunning looking visuals. With the music is the sounds of each settings and the sounds from the puzzles moving and coming together, which perfectly finished off the feeling of being in these rooms and locations.
The story is all told via some boxes that pop-up as you solve some puzzles, which are more your characters internal dialogue. Outside of this Leonardo has left you scrolls in most of the locations explaining his current situation and giving you clues to his whereabouts. It would have been nice to have spoken audio for your internal dialogue playing out in your head at least.
Comfort
The Verdict
The House of Da Vinci has been given new life with its move to Virtual Reality, with the team at Blue Brain Games creating perfect re-imaginations of the taxing puzzles from the flatscreen version, which are difficult at times but, fun to solve. They have also brought the Renaissance era to life perfectly, with stunning visuals that really show what the standalone device is capable of, and will have you in awe at how nice every location you visit looks with the quality and detailed textures. It does come with some caveats which are; it only has teleport and snap turning movement and you will be required to do a bit a reading. Thinking this the developers first attempt at a Virtual Reality game they have done an awesome job, and I hope they choose to continue bringing their titles to VR in the future.