You have been kidnapped. You’re locked in a room by an unknown captor. You have a span of five days to escape. You have found a key inside the room you’re being held in. You can leave that room and look for ways to get into other areas of the apartment/condo, but you have a limited time to do so while the kidnapper is gone. After you have done your investigating, you must put everything back the way it was before, or you risk the discovery that you had been out of the room, which would end your future chances of leaving. Will you be able to escape, or will you meet your end?

Here’s what I liked:

Backwards Escape Room — What I enjoyed the most about this short experience is the way you must set everything back to how it was. Each time you play a day, the keys reset to different places, so you can’t always just memorize as you play, since it’s changing. It should be easy as long as you make your mental notes, but sometimes, when time is running out, you can become hurried and forget to close a door or maybe a light. Each day has something that has changed, allowing you to progress more into your discoveries. You accomplish what you are tasked to do, then have to do everything backwards, making sure you haven’t missed something. I don’t think I’ve played something where the attention to detail has to be done backwards like this. I really enjoyed it.

Tense Timing — There is a time limit. You have a watch, but checking it can cost you some time. The most tense time is when the kidnapper is coming home. You may rush to your room thinking you have it all put away correctly, but then, as you go to bed, the game tells you about your failure. You can attempt to rush to whatever you forgot to do (there’s a blueprint of the apartment in the hallway showing you the mistakes). However, you’re pretty much out of time and most likely will need to restart the day. When you fail you have to restart the whole day over, and some of the items are now in different places so you have to reset your memory of them.

Forgiving Failure — You will likely fail a few times. Part of the learning is getting as far as you can and then retrying. The day will be easier as you get used to what you have to do, almost as if you’re practicing for a speed run of the level. Even though the game is time-limited for your actions, you can always restart the day and won’t lose your other progress. There is an achievement for completing the game without mistakes, so that’s the only real unforgiving part. It’s fine to replay the game since it’s short, and you’ll want to find all the cat statues and gain other achievements too, so you may find yourself playing through two times or more.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

Missing Story Elements — There are a lot of unknowns while you play. Who kidnapped you? Why did this happen? What are their plans for you? You run around the whole house and find no clues on what’s going on. There’s no discovery, you just set out to escape. This creates a void of any real story. There are questions that will go unanswered. I found myself really wanting these answers. I feel like it would have made the playthrough more impactful and interesting. I don’t think it would have been too difficult to add it. There are some scenes after you sleep that don’t make a lot of sense, random videos of other things, while the protagonist talks. This could have been used instead to uncover the story.

Not Making Sense — The premise is really fun and unique. However, there are some things that puzzled me. On some days, you have to find food and eat it. This includes grabbing an orange off a fruit bowl, apples from the fridge, and another fruit in one of the rooms on a table. If these items kept going missing, wouldn’t this indicate to the kidnapper (who isn’t feeding you) that you’ve been out and found a way to unlock these doors? Also, why is the key to the room you’re trapped in just under the desk near the door? It seems like a lot of mistakes from the kidnapper. Also, the security isn’t really all that great. Every key is just sitting around in open places. There is a door that isn’t locked that leads to a computer. Which, guess what? It overrides other locks and even has the code to do so under a hammer right next to it. Who’s smart enough to do all this, yet too dumb to be secure?

Wrap-up

I enjoyed playing through the game and figuring everything out. There is some room for error, but it’s great that you can replay the day and get faster each time. The controls were all fine except when you had to input numbers. It was likely made more for a mouse and keyboard, and it was specifically more difficult to open the safe. You would click the wrong buttons often because of the movement of the cursor. I didn’t encounter any bad bugs, besides one that kept the hunger icon zoomed in once, even when I ate. It’s nice to experience it, but you may not be playing it long or ever again. But I don’t regret getting a chance to escape a kidnapping while needing to pay attention to details so that I could put everything back the way it was before I touched it. It might not be for everyone, but those who love attention to detail will find this game appealing.

Score: Reader’s Choice

There’s a Gun in the Office was published and developed by Take IT Studio! sp. z o. o. on Xbox One. It was released on February 27 2025, for $8.99. A copy was provided for review