Doors Paradox is a light puzzle game about unlocking doors. The doors come in a wide variety of shapes and themes presented in a wonderful artstyle. The appeal of the game is simply to click on buttons brainlessly while looking at pretty doors. It offers very little else apart from a casual disconnect from life, but it is decent at that.
The best aspect of the game is its presentation. The art-style works wonderfully together with completely new doors every level such that it is always fresh and interesting. Every individual level gradually changes and transforms as you solve one of the many puzzles contained in a level required to move to the next level. The effects used are also pretty satisfying to look at. The presentation is overall why I enjoyed my time with the game.
The type of puzzles are very frequently busy work puzzles; by that I mean puzzles that are very simple, but simply take some time to do. Very few of the puzzles I encountered required any thinking, and it was mostly about just doing something. You do not linger on the moments or the puzzles.
Some of the puzzles are unfortunately a bit hard to understand, and the hint function that the game offers only shows you where you should look. It does not provide any actual hints apart from that. I think the game sorely needs written hints on certain puzzles as you will figure out half of it, but not understand what you are missing. Luckily the game offers a skip puzzle function such that you can just move away from the poorly designed puzzles if you wish. The types of puzzles are frequently repeated.
You can rotate, zoom in and click on objects. The games controls feels like it is a port from a mobile device. The game feels a bit wonky on the PC, and you cannot rotate without zooming out, which is very frustrating on some of the puzzles. Overall the PC controls could use a solid overhaul. It is not so bad that it is not playable, but it is annoying. The game feels a bit slow and sluggish to react. It is not a major issue for this type of game, but it can be annoying. The worst part about the game, and the reason why I stopped playing is that the game forces you to collect crystals every level. These are hidden in the level, and you need to click on them to collect them. They serve as the unlock mechanic for some levels, and if you missed some you need to go back to a previous level to search for it. Which means that in order to continue I need to replay levels I have no desire to replay, and I simply will not do it. I am quitting the game at level 17, act 2 because of this. I have used about 6 hours to get to this point, and had a reasonably good time. My overall expression is that the game is a decent casual puzzle game with some annoying progression elements and an annoying control set-up.
| Playtime | 6 Hours to reach level 17 act 2 |
| Game release date | 24 September 2021 |
| Review release date | 31 July 2024 |
| Light sensitivity | No issues |
| Sound sensitivity | No issues |
| Motion sickness | No issues |
| Steam | Metacritic – Metascore (none) |