Floor Plan Review (PSVR)
For the purposes of transparency, this review was created using a code provided by the company or their respective PR company. The use of a review code does not affect my judgement of the game.
Another puzzle game has landed on the Playstation VR in the form of Floor Plan. This one is from Turbo Button – the developers of Adventure Time: Magic Man’s Headgames that was released on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Now there is a large number of puzzle games coming to the PSVR, how does Floor Plan hold up?
The game takes a unique approach to the puzzle element by placing you in an elevator, where you can not step out of it and explore the floors – it is all done from inside the elevator. This seems like the team have only really taken this approach as it has been ported from Gear VR, but it really does make a good transition to Playstation VR and works well.
When it comes to the puzzles it really plays out like old classics like Monkey Island, where it is all very much point and click and moving between the floors to figure out what to do with the items. Where this might sound a little boring, the way the game brings these puzzles together makes sure it doesn’t become boring.
They do this by making each floor different and unique, and them becoming interactive with each other for some of the puzzles. This can vary between a graveyard, a construction floor with a drill, a cold floor with a snowman and frozen meat, which makes the game always feel fresh. They add to this some humour on some of the floors, but there is no spoken words and parts of it will play out as slapstick comedy.
I can’t really say much about the puzzles, as these are fun to solve yourself, but the aim is to collect the pieces to complete an astronaut suit on the top floor. As previously mentioned you will need to find pieces for the puzzles on the floors available to you, then you have to figure out there uses on other floors. The game does not give you much help with the puzzles or much instructions at all, you are placed in the elevator and that is it. However, you can request a hint by pressing the call button within the elevator – but this is not really a hint system. It will give you hints like ‘You need an item’, which means you are just going to have to go floor to floor looking for an item.
This means even if you are good at puzzles games it is still going to make it a decent puzzler, and if you’re struggling it is certainly going to be decent puzzler, but not an overly difficult one. Due to the fact if you are struggling a little you can just go floor to floor pressing on every clickable point with your item selected, and it will finally come together – making it a game everyone can complete.
The presentation takes a bright cartoon approach, and given the comical situations that will play out in some occasions it suits the game. One thing I loved is some of the little touches in the designs on each floor and the aforementioned interaction between some of the floors for the puzzles. These little touches are things like seeing your characters breath on the frozen floor – just something tiny, but it makes a huge difference.
The game can be played in both a seated or standing position, but given the fact you can’t leave the elevator I just played it seated. It offers the use of two Move Controllers or the DualShock 4, although for this review I only played it using the Move Controllers, as I completed it in on sitting and didn’t feel the need to go through it again. With the Move Controllers as you would expect each one represents the corresponding hand in the game, and you grab objects and then point and click at the interaction points to try to use the item. There was a few times I lost the tracking with the camera, but this was only very minor and did not ruin the game in any way.
But, Floor Plan does come with one main issue, and that is the length of the game. I expected to transported to another elevator, but the credits started to roll instead. As I mentioned above I got through the game in one sitting, and that sitting took me around thirty-five minutes, and once you have done the puzzles there is no feeling of wanting to go back and do them again.
Conclusion
Floor Plan brings another decent puzzler to the Playstation VR, and even though it is port from Gear VR it still makes a great game on this platform. Bringing with it some memories of classic point and click puzzle games, and some slapstick comedy moments. However, it’s one glaring fault is its length, which really stands out because the way the game it plays it leaves you wanting a lot more, but then it doesn’t deliver. Although, even given it’s length if you are looking for a solid puzzle game and just have some time to kill, I would say consider Floor Plan because at least it is not overly priced at $5.99 (USD).
Also available on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality
Developer: Turbo Button
At the moment this is not available in EU territories on Playstation VR, but it should be available by the end of April.
