Room to Grow (2021)

Room to Grow stands apart from anything else available in the puzzle game market. It may not inspire a whole new era of puzzle gaming, but it does provide a novel and genuinely challenging experience.

Room to Grow is probably one of those titles that don't do anything wrong… but aren't really that great. Sure, simplicity can work wonders, and in the world of puzzle games that has happened many times. Not here, unfortunately, as the progression is extremely slow, as if this is afraid of frightening players, with the few mechanics available being handed to you in an equally slow pace. Is Mischka Kamener's creation bad because of these issues? Far from it. As long as you don't mind NOT being fed with new stuff to remain interested, this is a neat assortment of smart puzzles, that will take some time to be completed, pro or not.

Help your little cactus buddy grow his way back home to the desert in Room to Grow, an elegant and creative puzzle game. Think outside the box to move yourself around each level as you try to snake your way through over 100 deceptively difficult stages.

Room to Grow isn’t spectacular, but it’s not bad either. It’s a simple puzzle game with a very interesting gameplay mechanic that becomes a bit tiresome after a while due to its repetitive nature. The excessively simplistic visuals and sound effects don’t add much to it either. It’s fairly enjoyable, but as mentioned with many other small Steam indies I’ve tackled in the past, this would have been a better fit on the Switch or a phone instead of a PC.

Room to Grow is a game that asks to be played on its own terms. And while it’s unlikely that every player will enjoy staring at the same grid-screen as the minutes turn to hours, carefully checking every permutation of movements to finally find the one golden solution, when the game finds its intended audience, the design here really sings.