Don’t open the doors! Review

I had to get Don’t open the doors! Because it looked so unique. There aren’t too many claymation games around, and I’ve personally never played one. Although the art style isn’t usually what I like, I knew I had to try this game out. And you know what? I grew to really like the art!

When you first start off, you’re just a regular Joe who isn’t super bright—at least from what I get out of the conversations I have with people around me. The good thing is that no one else is particularly smart either. Except the pale man. He’s pretty smart and I’ve learned lots of great things from him.

You’ll begin by talking to a guard in front of a set of gates. You’ve got a very important mission of getting a megabomb to destroy the doors that have appeared all over the town. These doors have bad monsters inside them, though they also contain treasures such as coins and items. Nonetheless, more and more doors are popping up and if you’re able to get a megabomb to destroy the main door, everyone will be safe once and for all.

The guard is less than sympathetic to your case, and I’m pretty sure he thinks he’s better than you. He sends you off to a mission inside a nearby cave, hoping to get rid of you, but against all odds, you survive! You also find a huge hammer that can hit enemies and destroy things around you. Upon seeing that on you as you emerge from the cave, the guard abandons his post and runs away. Feels good to have power!

If you’re someone like me who loves going around and destroying everything that can be destroyed, you’ll have a great time in Don’t open the doors! Your giant hammer can smush the clay flowers, corn, sunflowers and more. It’s really satisfying hearing the environment being squashed and watching things turn into puddles of clay.

As you progress through the plot, you’re tasked with different major quests. Your first one will be to find the ingredients to make another bomb, since the last one is misplaced by the dimwitted guards and army. Finding the rare ingredients aren’t as easy as you’d think and you’ll have to be prepared to fight your way through enemies for them.

There’s a lot of side quests that you can do for random clay townsfolk that can give you benefits of some sort. I almost joined a bug fighting gang where everyone there really hated bugs. If I passed a total of four different bug filled challenges (where my goal is to really just kill everything in the room), they’d reward me. The last room got way too hard given I was still a naked clay man when I tried joining, but I believe one day, I’ll rise to become a member of that secret society.

The open world in Don’t open the doors! is neat to explore. If you’re low on health, you may want to head back to your friend’s house to pop a few pills. You’re also free to explore through the various doors that are scattered across the land, or you can skip them. Of course, there’s lot of benefits to doing them, since some of them grant you new abilities via books. Finding books mean you’ll be visited by a pale man, who can teach you new skills. At the end of some of these dungeons, there’s a permanent health upgrade!

The reason why I stopped entering every door was because it started to feel a little repetitive. Sure, they were still challenging, but it felt a little similar from door to door. The enemies were mostly the same. I remember there was one cactus that shot out spikes at you from a distance, and as I progressed further, the cactus mobs wouldn’t die with a few hits, but instead would change colors and you’ll have to repeat the process. So basically, it took more hits to kill. I haven’t skipped all the doors entirely, but have cut down on how many I enter.

The dialogue is one aspect of the game I also really appreciated. Again, everyone doesn’t seem to be the sharpest tool in the shed so it’s really funny getting the clay people’s reactions to your questions. Also, things you don’t expect to talk may say something when you walk past. I had this sack of berries tell me it didn’t like me, and some pumpkins judge me for planting flowers. Sometimes, pumpkins will also refuse to give me entry to gates or tell me things, which makes buying pumpkin bombs from vendors really tempting.

Don’t open the door! is a really unique game, and you’ll have a great time venturing through this clay world. I can only imagine the amount of work that was put into this and I really commend the team for putting together such a great game!

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary PC code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.