I had never played a Rusty Lake game despite hearing some excellent things about them. After playing through Samsara Room, the new entry in the series, I can say I'm definitely going to go through the previous games.

Samsara Room takes place in a single room and plays like an escape room. There are various objects along the four walls and your task is to work out what is compatible with what and how to progress. The visuals and user interface are clean and responsive to your clicks. You can be sure that if you clicked on something and nothing happened then that is correct and you need to trying something else.

I really enjoyed playing through the game in one sitting. The puzzles are logical and fun to beat. A lot of the time it's a matter of being presented with a number of obstacles and working out the first solution which will then lead to a satisfying sequence of problem solving. I found that it was easy to identify the problem within each puzzle and what would be required to solve it. This helps the flow of the game and prevents long periods where you make no progress. However, there were a couple times in my play through where I did the try-everything-with-everything approach.

The imagery is striking and surprisingly varied throughout the game. I don't want to say too much about it nor the variety of puzzles that you encounter as it will lessen the impact when you experience it first-hand. I would say that the puzzles become more intricate as you progress and become multi-layered. One later puzzle especially sticks in my mind as I used screenshots, notes and some trepidation but ultimately solved it with a great sense of accomplishment and relief.

Samsara Room is free and you really have nothing to lose by giving it a try. I finished it in about ninety minutes and enjoyed all of it. Apart from some brief periods of slight frustration at not working out the next solution, it was a relaxing and satisfying game that was a joy to sit and play through one morning.