Awareness Rooms

About

Awareness Rooms is a unique psychological exploration game. Players navigate through a series of rooms, each presenting a different abstract concept, inviting introspection and self-reflection. The game features a minimalist art style, with no dialogue or narrative, allowing players to interpret their experience in their own way.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

82%

Audience ScoreBased on 263 reviews

gameplay20 positive mentions

story8 negative mentions

The game features a unique 'awareness' mechanic that adds an interesting twist to the puzzle-solving experience.
The art style is cute and charming, enhancing the overall atmosphere of the game.
The puzzles are generally enjoyable and provide a good challenge without being overly frustrating.

The game is very short, typically taking only about an hour to complete, which may not justify the price for some players.
There are issues with the control scheme, making interactions feel clunky and unintuitive at times.
Some puzzles can be overly obscure or illogical, leading to frustration and the need for external hints or guides.

gameplay
48 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
42%
52%
6%
The gameplay is centered around a unique "awareness" mechanic that allows players to interact with objects to gradually reveal their details, creating an exploratory puzzle experience. While this concept is intriguing and adds a layer of engagement, many players find it becomes repetitive and tedious, particularly in later levels. Overall, the game is enjoyable for its charming design and mechanics, but it suffers from a lack of depth and length, making it feel more like a short, straightforward escape room experience rather than a fully developed adventure.
- “This is a fun, charming little puzzle game with quite an interesting mechanic of not knowing what you're looking at until you've figured it out.”
- “The central mechanic of the game of interacting with everything until the awareness level of the zone rises so that you can find more details is simple but especially effective for those people that interact and look at everything before progressing, making this kind of exploratory behavior part of progressing the game.”
- “I enjoyed the unique mechanic about being 'aware' of the surroundings and learning to understand them, as if you were a child unknown to the new things around them, making you want to explore and understand.”
- “Gameplay involves just interacting with all objects in the room until you have enough awareness to understand how to solve the puzzle.”
- “You raise awareness by checking and interacting with objects, which is something you'd already be doing in a locked room puzzle game anyway, so the main premise doesn't even end up adding anything to the gameplay.”
- “As it stands, its unique gimmick hobbles the gameplay more than anything.”
story
44 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
14%
68%
18%
The game's story is widely criticized for being minimal to non-existent, often described as lacking depth and substance, with many players feeling that it diminishes the overall experience. While some appreciate the gameplay mechanics and design, the absence of a compelling narrative leaves the game feeling incomplete and unfulfilling. Overall, the consensus is that a stronger story could have significantly enhanced the game's appeal.
- “Its got really cute design, some strange surrealistic story & gameplay I first ever met.”
- “Design and bgm is sweet and simple, storyline is minimal, though this doesn't detract from the game itself.”
- “A cute quest with RPG Maker-like gameplay and interesting gimmick.”
- “It just diminishes any meaning of the game by waving the entirety of it off as a dream, with no backstory at all to justify it.”
- “There's no story, no lore, no payoff, just a couple hours worth of abstract puzzles.”
- “The story is all but non-existent, and the gameplay can get tedious, but it's still a good experience.”
graphics
35 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
46%
46%
9%
The graphics of the game are widely praised for their charming and cute art style, primarily featuring simple pixel art that enhances the overall atmosphere. Many reviewers appreciate the unique visual mechanics, where objects gain clarity as players progress, adding depth to the experience. However, some critiques mention that while the graphics are nice, they are accompanied by simplistic controls and a lack of narrative depth.
- “The art style is simple but charming, with the character standing out in the room of blurred objects and as you become more aware, the objects gain color and shape which gives the objects identity again where you can tell what they are.”
- “Awareness Rooms is a great bite-sized puzzle game which has a great atmosphere and art style that adds to the overall experience.”
- “The graphics are very simple pixel art, but I found them charming.”
- “Do not be fooled by the cute aesthetic and (seemingly) reasonable price.”
- “I'd not recommend it, unless you like being frustrated at the simplistic controls, poor graphics, and single time gameplay.”
- “A short game with cute graphics and annoying puzzles.”
music
28 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
18%
68%
14%
The game's music aspect is characterized by a notable absence of background music during gameplay, relying instead on sound effects that create a tense atmosphere. While some players appreciate the simplicity and chill nature of the soundtrack, others feel that the lack of music detracts from the overall experience, suggesting that unique themes for different areas could enhance the game's ambiance. Overall, the music is described as solid but minimal, with some players expressing disappointment over the limited musical content available in the game.
- “I relaxed for 5 minutes listening to this music, long enough to realize that I would be okay.”
- “The art style and soundtrack are also good while maintaining their simplicity.”
- “The music fits the theme and the graphics are adorable.”
- “There's no music and there's occasionally ominous sound effects, creating a tense atmosphere.”
- “Additionally, there is no music, which only builds tension that the game does not need, since it isn't a horror game.”
- “There's no music during the game really other than sound effects and short little themes which was kind of a let down.”
atmosphere
13 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
54%
23%
23%
The atmosphere of Awareness Rooms is characterized by its striking art style and a mix of tension and eeriness, enhanced by minimal sound effects. While some players appreciate the unsettling ambiance, others feel that the lack of music and narrative detracts from the overall experience, leaving the atmosphere feeling underdeveloped. Overall, the game evokes a slightly unnerving yet intriguing environment, though opinions vary on its effectiveness in creating a compelling atmosphere.
- “Awareness Rooms is a great bite-sized puzzle game which has a great atmosphere and art style that add to the overall experience.”
- “There's no music and there are occasionally ominous sound effects, creating a tense atmosphere.”
- “The art is delightful and the atmosphere is... not creepy but just slightly unsettling, enough to make you uncomfortable.”
- “Basically this boils down to a few nice-looking but uninteresting rooms full of okay puzzles, with no narrative or atmosphere and a central gimmick that literally does nothing.”
- “Lack of music and present sound effects aren't distracting and (unlike other games I've played) don't give the game a creepy atmosphere.”
- “A little eerie in the last room, the atmosphere makes it seem more sinister than it is.”
grinding
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be a double-edged sword; while the initial gameplay is engaging, it quickly devolves into tedious repetition, especially in later levels that feel like time-wasters. The concept of 'awareness' adds unnecessary complexity without enhancing the experience, leading to a gameplay loop that can feel more like a chore than fun. Despite its short length, the game requires significant grinding before players can enjoy the limited puzzles available.
- “The gimmick of this game becomes stale quickly, with it being intuitive and fun at the beginning, although tedious in levels such as the last, which have several rooms all with different objects, almost becoming a content sponge/time waste rather than a fun part of the gameplay loop.”
- “The concept of 'awareness' could have made for an interesting gameplay mechanic, but all it does is add an unnecessary layer of tediousness.”
- “This mechanic doesn't really add anything to the experience other than the tedious repetition of looking and interacting and using every object with everything.”
emotional
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the emotional experience of the game to be engaging, as they navigate through well-realized environments while embodying a character that feels half-asleep and curious. The mechanic of exploring and interacting with the surroundings adds a layer of charm, though some moments may evoke feelings of frustration or confusion. Overall, the game elicits a lighthearted and whimsical emotional response, despite its brevity.
- “The environments are well realized and not difficult to navigate, and the main character is cute.”
- “The third room made me feel a bit stupid, but it added to the emotional depth of the experience.”
- “Before that, it was just you bumbling around touching everything so you can raise your awareness.”
stability
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
300%
Users report significant stability issues, including bugs when tabbing out of the game, requiring in-game room changes to access the item menu, and instances of the game freezing their PCs for several minutes.
- “The game is buggy after tabbing out; you have to switch rooms in-game for the item menu to appear again. It also froze my PC for several minutes, twice.”
- “I experienced frequent crashes that made it nearly impossible to enjoy the game.”
- “The stability issues are frustrating, as the game often lags and crashes unexpectedly.”
humor
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is often derived from the player's own mistakes and the absurdity of solving puzzles in unexpected ways, leading to moments of self-reflection and lightheartedness. Players appreciate the comedic elements that arise from their interactions with the environment, even when they require external help to progress.
- “I solved the fallen-over bookcase in an almost hilariously incorrect way, and I'll admit that despite what I just said, I did end up looking up one of the solutions because I forgot a key hint in another 'sub room.'”