Samsara Room
Review

Samsara Room (2013) is an abstract point-and-click puzzle-horror game. By solving the puzzles hidden throughout the room, you uncover an uneasy story about judgement and atonement told through the things you find.

The whole game is set in a mysterious room filled with unusual and seemly random objects. Your goal is to escape, although the way out is unclear. As you explore by clicking and interacting with objects, you uncover pieces of the mystery.

It becomes apparent that the room is a place of judgement for your past actions, and your choices will now determine your fate. To progress you interact, move and manipulate objects to uncover clues or place them in your inventory to be used elsewhere. Puzzles include moving the hands on an old clock, rearranging letters spoken out of a telephone, and finding and lighting candles. You continually need to adapt concepts used in earlier parts of the game as clues as to what to do later on. It's not easy and you need considerable outside-the-box and experimental thinking to succeed.

It's a unique game that contains a complex and abstract mystery. Although part of the Rusty Lake universe, with hints and nods to that wider story, it tells a largely standalone story, and provides a novel puzzle experience.

Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Samsara Room 20 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 20 months ago.