Palindrome Syndrome: Escape Room
As the title already says, Palindrome Syndrome: Escape Room is an escape room game – it’s a short, enjoyable game, with pretty graphics, fairly easy puzzles and a nice atmosphere.
You wake up in what appears to be a small room belonging to a spaceship, however you are unable to get out because the door is locked. There are a few chained puzzles to solve (solving one will grant you a missing piece / hint for the next one) after which you are able to progress to the next room. There you will discover that you’re walking in the footsteps of a certain doctor Andrews, who was researching a cure for a disease that he named ‘Palindrome Syndrome’ due to its peculiar aspect of repeating a chain reaction in a reverse order. The story starts to unfold from the notes and bits of information that you find scattered around and as you progress throughout the game and unlock further rooms, you will find more and more details about the disease, dr. Andrews’ research and a potential cure. The story kept me interested until the end, but it did feel a bit “thin” overall – there was no narrator and I would have liked to read more notes, to have more insight into the background of the doctor or his relationship with the patient. Six rooms later, I was confronted with a very unexpected plot twist and a shocking ending.
The puzzles seemed pretty uncomplicated from the perspective of a person who loves playing puzzle games; they were mostly logic puzzles, with clues that were visible in your surroundings. In this kind of game, one annoyance is that a puzzle can be interpreted in several ways, therefore you need to try various approaches; however, in Palindrome Syndrome: Escape Room this is not the case. Apart from 2 or 3 puzzles that had 2 potential solutions each, they are quite straightforward and easily deductible. You will still need a pen and paper in some cases though.
Overall, Palindrome Syndrome: Escape Room is a lovely game with an attractive sci-fi setting and puzzles that make the gameplay almost effortless. The shortness of it is the only downside worth mentioning – it took me roughly 2h to play though the whole game, which makes the asking price of $10 quite high. It’s definitely worth picking up with a discount though, for a relaxing 2h ride.