The Room Two is on sale today, down to $2.99. On visiting its iTunes Preview page to get a link, I saw a review that pretty much sums up everything that’s wrong with iOS gamers, by user ‘Pokerpro#66’. It starts as follows:

First of all, $5.99 was a complete rip-off for the room 2.

Straight in there with six whole dollars being a “complete rip-off” for an ambitious multitouch 3D puzzle game. Also, The Room Two cost $4.99 on launch, not $5.99, so there is that.

Not much more gameplay than the original 99¢ version,

Perhaps the dev is somewhat to blame for this, given that The Room has been on sale for $0.99 a few times, but its default price was in fact $4.99, just like the sequel.

including a “chapter” which literally required one action to complete it.

“Pacing is bad.”

I can appreciate the work that goes into these games but this experience really put me off from wanting to buy any other apps from this company. If you are going to charge more than double the price for your 2nd version, you had better put the value into it.

“I don’t understand that old games are sometimes put on sale, to encourage you to buy new ones.” See also: all media sales, ever. The new Mogwai album costs twice that of the older ones on iTunes. Man, they’d better have put more value into it after doubling the price! Derp.

While the graphics are great, and the puzzles are very creative, it becomes very formulaic after a while.

An actual, legitimate criticism, albeit one I don’t really agree with, given that I’m struggling to think of a single decent game that wouldn’t match that statement.

Consider also that once you have solved every chapter, you have essentially reached the end,

Like with a book. Or a film. Or a TV show. Or countless other games, for that matter.

whereas some 99¢games provide endless, albeit mindless, entertainment far beyond the purchase price.

“Endless mindless gaming is better than a finite shot of magic. Also, I like Candy Crush Saga.”

If you have money to burn give it a try.

If you want an atmospheric, intriguing and interesting—albeit finite—multitouch gaming experience, give it a try. (But buy The Room and play that through first, preferably in a pitch black room, so you can scare the bejesus out of yourself.)