Panel Room - Escape Game -

I’ve enjoyed all of Mani’s escape room games, but this one goes above and beyond. As usual, the puzzles are challenging but totally fair. These are not story-based games, they’re more like riddles than tales, and these are some of the best of that genre due to the quality and variety of the puzzles. Be patient and think creatively about how to use the items and you can generally figure things out. The comic book style of this one is very pleasing, and the room is so well designed that you enjoy the time spent puzzling over what to do next. The bonus game is what really puts this one over the top—the way it’s integrated with and builds on the main game is really clever and fun. Mani’s puzzles are fun to work on and really satisfying to solve—exactly what you want from an escape room game.

Panel Room is a perfectly clever and oh-so-playfully inventive escape-the-room just as you’d expect from Kotorinosu! It’s reminiscent of Pixel Room with its imaginative twists and turns. With just the right amount of challenge to make you think, Panel Room is never obtuse; its puzzles and clues can be found and deciphered with careful observation and making logical connections. There are no pixel hunts because everything you need to see can be seen. You can often tap on sides of an object or panel to change angles and see it from different perspective. To anyone who’s stuck, just remember: If you need it you have it and if you don’t have it, maybe there is a spot you didn’t explore or connections waiting to be made. Don’t get caught up on red herrings—of which there are one or two—as there is an order to how the puzzles need to be solved. It helps a lot to keep notes and take a few screenshots or draw a few sketch’s (I play on an iPad and use my phone to take notes). For a successful escape, there is a really nice reward! ********** Edit: There’s a rather frustrating pixel hunt in bonus game; you need to tap in one small specific spot on a certain item from a specific angle or you move to the wrong area, so it’s easy to think there isn’t a way to reach it. A good memory or good note-taking might remind you that the spot exists, though.

I loved this game! I don’t write reviews often, but this game was exceptional! A lot of the escape room genre gets kind of stale, but there was a lot that was fresh here. The comic book mechanism itself was something I haven’t seen before, where you are clicking into different panels to manipulate the scene and going back and forth as one part of the room impacts another. Other elements were unique too, and it veered away from the many genre tropes like oil to remove rust, coin to turn a screw, etc. The bonus game was a great surprise and I got probably the same amount of total gameplay from it. Highly recommend this game, and I’m excited to go check out the creators other games now!