Experience the Renaissance like never before in The House of Da Vinci VR. This captivating puzzle adventure immerses you in the mysteries of Leonardo Da Vinci's world. Embark on a quest filled with puzzles, inventions, and hidden objects. As Da Vinci’s most promising apprentice, you are summoned to Florence only to find that Leonardo has mysteriously disappeared. Test your skills with war machines, complex lockboxes, and immersive room escapes. Use an extraordinary device that allows you to see events from the past, providing crucial insights and aiding in your quest. Explore 16th-century Florence, delving into Leonardo’s ingenious puzzles and devices. Many challenges are based on Da Vinci's actual inventions, alongside locations inspired by his original artworks and the historical city of Florence...

Interact with Da Vinci's wonderful mechanical contraptions

If you've already played the flat version of The House of Da Vinci, the VR edition brings a whole new dimension to the table. It's more interactive, more engaging and a lot more fun. The rooms and puzzles may look familiar, but there's many differences that mean that even if you've completed the flat edition, it's worth picking this release up.

Leonardo Da Vinci has disappeared, but he's left clues that only you, his apprentice, can unlock in order to find out where your teacher has vanished to. Interact with Da Vinci's wonderful mechanical contraptions, find hidden keys and manipulate found objects to turn them into objects which can be used within your environment.

As enjoyable as I found this game, I was concerned to discover that there were quite a few bugs that needed ironing out, and they're not small ones either, they required me to restart the level because elements that should have been moveable suddenly became stuck. Restarting the level fixed that, but it meant that I was forever wondering if a puzzle I was engaged with had bugged out, or whether I just wasn't doing things correctly. The worst example I encountered meant that I was unable to use the wrist gauntlets which allow you to see hidden elements. With these unworkable, it meant I had no choice but to start the level again, and that was around 20 minutes of puzzles I had to redo... and then, whilst doing that, the game bugged out again temporarily and I almost had to restart the level again. I'm hoping that these issues will be patched soon, because if not the game could be described as a buggy mess.

The mechanics are a little too fiddley and on occasion it was a nightmare trying to move things in a certain direction. It would have been easier if once you interacted with part of the puzzle, you had to keep the trigger button held down. But, whilst this was mildly frustrating, and slightly took you out of the immersion, on balance it wasn't game breakingly annoying.

Some found items are also mini puzzles that need to be manipulated

Some may bemoan the teleportation system for moving around, but I didn't really have a problem here, because it ensured I was always at the right angle and height to solve each puzzle, instead of having to fiddle around trying to get into the correct position on each puzzle.

To stop the game getting too complicated you can't interact with other elements until you've solved the current part of the puzzle you're on. That has positive and negative points. On the positive side, it does mean you'll never get in over your head and accidentally move something that you shouldn't until later. But, on the negative side, it makes it feel like the developer is hand holding a little too much. Puzzles are easy to complete because you just try to interact with everything in the environment and the one part you can move is the part you need to tackle to complete the puzzle.

It looks and feels incredible. The subtle background sound effects help to add another import layer of immersion. Let's just hope an update patch is released soon to iron out the rather annoying kinks in the gameplay.

9

Darren Rea