I’ve always had a soft spot when it comes to a good mobile puzzle game. Experiences like The Room were some of the first to really show off the potential of mobile gaming, with its simple, interesting puzzle mechanics and subtle use of storytelling. It’s in that same vein that developer Blue Brain Games has come to Kickstarter with its new puzzle adventure, The House of Da Vinci.
Set in the Renaissance workshop of Da Vinci himself, you play as one of the famed inventor’s faithful apprentices, using Da Vinci’s real-life inventions and schematics to solve puzzles and unlock the mystery of the master’s whereabouts.
From the get-go, the game’s visuals are gorgeous, invoking that Renaissance-era architecture to a tee, as well as creating beautifully made renditions of Da Vinci’s works. It could honestly be a selling point on its own, but thankfully it seems there’s more to this than just looks. Aside from the usual point and click puzzle interactions, the game features an interesting time mechanic, where the player can see a puzzle at different points in time in order to solve them. The campaign page also makes the point to emphasis story, which tend to be a little tacked on with these types of games, but is always nice to see anyways.
For anyone questioning Blue Brain’s abilities, these devs have the experience, releasing their beautiful, if a little run of the mill, hidden object game Mysteries of the Past: Shadow of the Daemon earlier this year. Their campaign page is also very transparent about where the funding would go, that mostly being animation, so there shouldn’t be too much fear of the dreaded “Kickstarter Delay Syndrome.”
With an expected release date of October 2016 on Steam, iOS, and Android, The House of Da Vinci is definitely a game to keep on the radar of any puzzle fan.
