Carpe Lucem: Seize The Light (Steam VR)

VR Shop Score – Silver Award

System: Valve Index, HTC Vive & Oculus Rift
Price at Time Of Review: £10.99
Comfort Rating: Yellow
Genre: Puzzle
Input: Tracked Motion Controllers, Gamepad
Best Playing Position: Standing
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: PG

 

Description: Solve tricky puzzles in a world full of mysterious secrets. Make steampunk styled flowers bloom using the power of light rays to unveil new worlds. In a relaxed, no-pressure environment players immerse themselves into this beautifully designed virtual reality. Guide and adjust the light rays, change their colours to match the flowers, use mirrors, prisms, magnets, teleporters and more to direct them to where they need to be.

Carpe Lucem challenges and entertains players by transferring classical 2D puzzles into the virtual space. They learn new fascinating aspects quickly. Now puzzle elements can be moved literally in the third dimension. But not only that: They can also be arranged 360 degrees all around the player. Sounds simple but it creates a whole new way of interacting and playing mind teasing puzzle games and it is indeed a perfect introduction to Virtual Reality.

Review: Carpe Lucem: Seize The Light is a clever game in both design and gameplay. While the gameplay is essentially a classic puzzle put into VR 3D it still feels as if it was made for VR. Anyone who loved games like Pipe Mania and Pipe Dream will feel right at home here. While it is made for motion controls a recent update has made it controller friendly and that is how we have come to review it.

While the basic idea of the game is simple, some of the levels are definitely not. Just wait till you start to get to the magnet stages. We’ve played quite a few VR puzzle games now and Carpe Lucem: Seize The Light is one of the best. The biggest problem with this game is that time will fly while you are in it. What you thought was a few minutes will soon be hours.

With some nice visuals and a strange feeling of immersion, this is a puzzle game that feels good to play while many do not. With some nice visuals, cheery sounds and easy to get the hang of gameplay this is a VR puzzle game you can instantly pick up and play. No training or advanced brainpower needed. While the game is classic by design it feels like it was made for VR and that is a declaration to the makers of it on how hard they have worked to make this game work.