This was a nice surprise. Statik is an odd little puzzle game where you find your hands trapped inside various puzzle boxes as part of some mysterious research project that’s never really explained at all. Like the cryptic observers suggest in the game, you should stop wondering why you’re here and what the purpose of any of this is, and just get to work. Your hands may be bound, but you can still fiddle with all the buttons on the controller to operate the various devices covering each box, and much fiddling will be needed, as absolutely nothing is explained to you.

You’ll need to do a lot of experimentation and flexing of your mental muscles to figure out exactly what your goals are and how to achieve them. You’ll also need to be observant of your surroundings, as there will often be hints or partial solutions sitting in plain sight in each room, though you may not recognize many of them as such at first.

Some may find this lack of clear information frustrating, but I found it to be quite enjoyable. There’s this odd sense of childish wonder upon receiving each new box and exploring all the colorfully mysterious knobs, switches, and other strange bits. They feel much like toys, but not the shoddy cheap plastic kind, no, these are some extremely clever and well-designed boxes that will put your logic and pattern recognition to the test (though none of it is as severe as games The Witness or The Talos Principle).

There are thirteen different boxes to solve, which can be done in ninety minutes, or supposedly up to five or more hours if you’re not a puzzle person. As usual with VR games, it’s rather short, but it’s incredibly well-produced and fun while it lasts. I felt a little sad when it was over, wishing that there were more boxes to play with.

Although, I’m now told that there is actually a secret ending that you can get by finding hidden clues in each level, which reveal secret combinations that you can enter into each box, so I guess I’ll have to go play it again already! Not that I’m going to complain about that.

If you’re a fan of puzzles and are looking for a worthwhile VR-exclusive game to play, I highly recommend Statik. It may be short, but it’s an incredibly worthwhile experience.

Statik is available now digitally for PS4. 

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