The House of Tesla review: Gorgeous visuals and clever puzzles shine, but clunky controls and uneven design spark frustration

Mairi Nolan, 23 September 2025

I’ll set the scene: You’re wandering through Nikola Tesla’s experimental station, the infamous Wardenclyffe Tower, at the turn of the 20th century. You’re surrounded by copper coils crackling with electricity, mysterious contraptions humming to life, and long blue shadows pool in through the stormy windows. Now imagine being given the levers and gears of an intricate device, and attempting to operate it whilst wearing oven mitts. That, in a nutshell, captures my experience with Blue Brain Games’ latest escape room.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been eagerly anticipating The House of Tesla for almost three long years since The House of Da Vinci 3 was released on PC. In many ways, the game delivers beautifully on the promise of its demo earlier this year. The physical space of the workshop is gorgeous, the puzzles are delightfully clever, and even Tesla himself would probably approve of the scientific and historical accuracy (though don’t quote me on that, I studied arts, not science). But somewhere between the electrifying concept and final execution, something got lost in translation. Specifically, the part where I’m supposed to feel like a genius inventor standing in the footsteps of Tesla himself, rather than someone fumbling with a stubborn jar lid.

This frustration can be broken into two parts: firstly, the clunky user interface, which is nothing new for this series and takes a little getting used to. Then there’s the difficulty spike, which in parts felt notably harder than in earlier entries to The House of Da Vinci series.

So, let’s get into the puzzles first. Where The House of Tesla best stands out from its Renaissance predecessors is its use of electricity. My word, what wonders we could have expected from Leonardo Da Vinci himself, if only he’d been born in Tesla’s time. Well, this game attempts to answer that and to help you visualise the electrical currents along the way you have a brand new tool: The Remote Space Wireless Power Transmitter. This device plays a similar role to Da Vinci’s Oculus Perpetua, but instead transforms invisible electrical flows into visible streams of blue energy, allowing you to trace power from source to destination across complex networks.

Using the tool works well in practice, and it allows for a three-staged puzzle structure in almost all chapters. First, you fix the machinery. You find small pieces, examine them closely and repair their broken parts. Then, you don the Wireless Power Transmitter and those electrical blue threads spring to life, allowing you to see what is, and more importantly, what isn’t connected. Some of the time this involves moving objects to connect circuits, and other times you’ll need to drag and trace electrical lines in the air to power the right things on at the right time. Then, finally, you solve the puzzle those unpowered machines hid in order to advance.

Whilst this puzzle flow is thematically spot on, it occasionally toes a line between “based on my knowledge of electricity, this isn’t how this works, but okay” and “wow, this is needlessly complex, isn’t there an on/off switch on this device?” Both things I said aloud whilst playing. But hey! I’m willing to suspend my disbelief. This is a puzzle game after all. I just wish some of those puzzles fit a little more diegetically into their world. For example, I really enjoyed a moment where I had to rearrange books on a shelf to make a marble roll through a complex run in order to unlock a glass case… And for that matter, I enjoy a block tangram puzzle as much as anyone on Thinky Games. But neither quite fit into their constructed universe. I found myself wondering just why Tesla designed it that way. It’s an identity crisis The House of Da Vinci hand-waves away as the “whimsy” of his curious contraptions and puzzle boxes. But Nikola Tesla’s electrical inventions are well documented, purposeful, and useful. The House of Tesla was appropriately challenging without requiring specialised electrical engineering knowledge, but maybe it could have benefitted from requiring (and teaching) a little.

The other area of frustration can be found in the controls. This isn’t anything new for the series, and will be familiar to players of this style of escape room game, but it still has a long way to go. The user experience is simple: When you hover over something interactable, the cursor changes. You click into it, and a slow zoom in, and a right click to zoom out. Some items you find have to be twisted, pulled, dragged, or interacted in a unique way. Overall, it’s simple enough, but when you know what to do and how to do it, the uncooperative interface and lengthy zoom cut scenes can feel like a hindrance and not a help. For a game built around careful observation and precise manipulation, these control quirks can get in the way.

Puzzle diegesis and design aside, from a visual and environmental standpoint, I completely understand why the developers chose this era for their newest puzzle venture. The House of Tesla is Blue Brain Games’ most gorgeous game to date, and that’s perhaps also its greatest strength. I’m a sucker for turn-of-the-century factory-Victoriana, and every visual detail of Tesla’s laboratory feels lovingly rendered and meticulously detailed. As the story unfolds, the game switches between a gloomy present and a bright and golden past. In both, the environmental storytelling really stands out. Scattered newspaper clippings reference real-world contemporaries, rivals and events, whilst handwritten notes in journals hint at the inventor’s frustrations. Give me a newspaper and you bet I’m going to be reading every last word on it, puzzle game or not. The House of Tesla rewards this with a world rich in lore in both past and present. Without giving any spoilers, I also felt it had one of the strongest storylines yet. Bravo, Blue Brain Games!

On the whole, The House of Tesla succeeds in many of its ambitions. It’s a gorgeous escape room game that captures the spirit of scientific industry, whilst providing substantial mechanical and electrical challenges. For players familiar with Blue Brain Games’ earlier titles, The House of Tesla represents a great evolution. It’s more of the same, with some fresh new mechanics added in. The electrical current system, whilst not completely revolutionary in the escape room genre, adds just enough novelty to justify the departure from The House of Da Vinci. I hope they explore Tesla’s world further in future titles.