Carpe Lucem – Seize the Light

A VR twist on a puzzler classic. You have to direct a flow to a location using a limited number of game pieces.

What is Carpe Lucem?

Carpe Lucem harks back to the 1989 classic Pipe Mania, which is itself a digital reimagining of the sliding grid puzzles you might see as small gifts for children today. Just as Pipe Mania transformed the experience by making it a computer game, Carpe Lucem aims for the same leap in the virtual reality age. Instead of water flowing through pipes which you need to direct, beams of light need to be reflecting to a core which has various effects, such as making steampunk flowers bloom, activating teleporters and so on. The puzzles take place in full 3D, with the player having to move their reflectors to direct the light in 360 degrees around them.

A new twist on an old idea?

Carpe Lucem was released in 2016. The concept behind the game is good, and the graphics might surprise you given its age and the relative lack of development VR had had in 2016. However, users are noticing more compatibility issues as time goes by, so be aware of that when you make your purchase.