The House of Da Vinci 2 9+

You took everything that was great about the first HoD and then lifted it further. Not only that, with cut scenes and storyline you’ve really stepped up and made an indelible mark on the genre. I have to say, it is probably the best escape puzzle game I’ve played yet.
Some of the puzzles are really hard but they’re all doable with persistence, and some of the next steps are very tricky to find, but again persistence pays off.
My only criticism was that the poem at the end was a bit much. I wanted the information from it, so I couldn’t skip, but it dragged a lot for me, and it didn’t seem particularly authentic.
Small issue with a fantastic game. I’m downloading the next while I write this.

Some of this is really excellent - a couple of very good chapters that have interesting puzzles and good visuals and these are fun to play. Features that make the game irritating are the ‘journal’ that adds nothing to the game as it records nothing of use to help you progress, the extremely long monologues with two characters that do nothing but fill time without furthering the game, and a couple of chapters that have no flow regarding how respective game parts might relate to each other making them plain frustrating. The worst feature is the glitch in chapter 6 where the metal triangle which I have set up correctly is not accepted into the door slot where it’s supposed to go. This has just about ruined the game for me as I cannot complete it. I had a similar issue with House 1 with the stupid astrolabe not triggering the next sequence despite having solved the puzzle. This eventually resolved and I did finish that game but unfortunately really spoilt the experience for me. At the prices charged, it’s really not good enough.

To be clear, this borrows heavily from the room series, almost to say it's a clone with a theme.

That said, it's a very very great clone. The time travel aspect was a fresh and enjoyable device for solvinb puzzles, which were excellent.

The art, engine and sounds were all good as well.

The only weak points were the story and the ending- the in game notebook has nothing of interest or use to add, and I think ultimateky that may be the difference when comparing against a game lie the room- which mainly tells the story with cutscenes, and the writing adds flavour. In da vinci, the story seems to be mostly told through the notebook entries, but the cutscenes don't enrich the story, it's just a transition.

All in all I definitely recommend this if you are a fan of the puzzle game play like the room.