The House of Da Vinci Review

The House of Da Vinci is an adventure puzzle game brought to us by Blue Brain Games.  For those of you who are already familiar with The Room games series you’ll find plenty of similarities in The House of Da Vinci. The game itself is set during the Renaissance era and, as you’d expect, opens with you receiving a letter from your friend, Leonardo Da Vinci. Within this letter Leonardo explains his desire to show you his new invention at his home in Florence. However, after you arrive you quickly find you’re not the only one interested in Da Vinci’s new invention.

Story within the game is delivered primarily through a series of letters or notes left for you by your pal Leonardo. The general gist is that his new invention has attracted some rather dangerous people who want to use it for their own gain. Leonardo himself has gone into hiding while leaving his invention safeguarded within his home. This is obviously where you come in, as in order to gain access to his invention you must first solve a variety of different puzzles left by Leonardo himself.

In terms of gameplay, The House of Da Vinci is entirely mouse driven making use of clicking or dragging to interact with items or the game environment. If you’ve already played any of The Room games you’ll find the similarities are almost endless not only in how you control the game but also in the general puzzle designs and how you go about solving them. One of the most glaring carbon-copies is that of an eyepiece, this time called an Oculi, which allows you to see the mechanisms within locks and invisible markings. This is just one of the few inventions Leonardo has left for you to make use of as you progress through each room within his home.

The general environment design and music contribute to the mystery and overall Renaissance theme. You’ll see many of Leonardo’s drawings and inventions, such as the Flying Machine, throughout your journey and will even make use of some in order to progress further. Miniature catapults, mechanical knights and even a tank are just a few of the inventions you will encounter, all of which draw influence from the real life Leonardo Da Vinci.

Progress itself, although linear, can be rather rewarding once you discover exactly how to solve a puzzle or where to place an item. Although, don’t worry if you get stuck as there’s a handy hint feature, again eerily similar to the one present within The Room, which will give you clues for where exactly you should be focusing your attention. This is especially handy once you get deeper into Leonardo’s home and the sheer number of things you can interact with within each room grows. Within my play through I found that most puzzles were simple enough to solve if you had already found the correct items, although there will still a few complex puzzles which had my undivided attention for a good 10 minutes or so.

Overall, The House of Da Vinci is a simple yet entertaining puzzle game. If you are a fan of The Room series there is no doubt you will also enjoy Blue Brain’s iteration on the genre. Although the similarities are endless it was still an enjoyable experience which did have a few unique features. Despite not being as well polished in terms of the overall interactions it more than makes up for it with the amount of content in comparison, although this is also reflected by the larger price tag. For lovers of The Room puzzle series who can’t wait for another game, you can’t go wrong with The House of Da Vinci.

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