CD-ROM

I quite enjoyed this. It is like a cross between an escape room and an ARG style game dressed up in a retro computer aesthetic. At it's core, gameplay boils down to figuring out passwords to proceed, either to unlock a password-protected installer for a tool to install on your in-game computer, or to unlock the next CD that you can load onto the the drive of your in-game computer. The game ends when you have unlocked all 10 CDs. The whole 10 CD thing is also reminiscent of when CDROM drives first came out and while games on CDs were generally expensive, a few aggregators would put together these long strips with 10 CDs (mostly shovelware) on them for a budget price and you felt like you were getting a steal. Aaah, good times! The tools you install on the computer are used as part of the decrypting process to discover more passwords. One of the "tools" is actually a gateway to an area that you move through with FPS controls where you can discover more clues and you actually have to enter a few codes to proceed as well. The whole thing comes together very nicely and the puzzles are plentiful and fun.

[i]CD-ROM[/i] delivers remarkable puzzle design with a good retro aesthetic, although it's held back by a lack of quality-of-life features. The puzzles are more diverse than expected, and I haven't really seen most of these in other games. Some puzzle designs require you to go back and forth between CDs. After an hour, I decided to (1) set the game to windowed mode and take screenshots for convenience, or (2) use a guide that provides hints. It's a bit rough, but it's one of few rare cases where the term 'hidden gem' accurately describes this game.

Very fun and well presented puzzle game. There were one or two puzzles that I felt were a bit obtuse, even after looking up the solution I still wasn't able to see the thread of logic. Other than that the puzzle design was really good. Also I'm a sucker for fake OS games.

One of the best puzzle games I've played

Great!

A very clever collection of puzzles! Despite not being anything like it, this gave me flashbacks to The Island of Dr. Brain, as some of the puzzles made you think outside of the box. Great game, great mechanics, and a really cool retro-futuristic interface!