Let’s just keep going down the Roblox rabbithole of unsettling games, shall we? This time we’re going to be covering “The Test”, which essentially works as a combination between “Russian Roulette” and “Breaking Point”.
You and up to three other servermates are seated at a table in a drab cell. A sawn-off shotgun sits in the middle. Gameplay consists of answering one of two number-related questions, or performing a cognitive task. The first player to get it right is handed the shotgun, and decides who to off. The next round follows the same formula until one person is left standing.
There are two types of number questions: Addition, and “guess a number”. The latter is pretty straightforward and probably needs no explanation. The only change is that you have to wait 2 seconds between guesses; the first person to get the number right, “wins”. For the former, a number is shown atop the screen, with five empty spaces below it. The players must fill up the empty spaces with numbers 1-10, until they add up to the number displayed at the top. You don’t have to fill up all the spaces, though, like I initially thought. So, for example, if the number is 7, you can put “7” in one space, leave the rest blank, and the answer will be considered correct.
The other task consists of dragging a red square across a thin board, until it lines up with a blue square. The catch is, every time you hit the sides of the board, you must start over from the beginning. This leads to a frantic race to the end, with no way of knowing the progress of your enemies.
The “life-or-death” stakes definitely add some intensity to the questions. While they’re simple by design, there’s the whole psychological aspect of knowing a slow answer will result in potential death. Or, when the round dwindles down to you and one other person, a certain fate. It might amount to empty stakes in a video game, but “The Test” does a good job of putting the player inside their character. Earning the gun gives you a sense of power and superiority, while facing the barrel of a gun knowing your fate is the stuff of psychological horror.
Matches can be more exciting depending on the server you’re in. Most “winners” will ask trivia questions via chat as a way to narrow down who their victim should be. Answer it wrong, or too slowly, and you might be the next to go. Others just point and shoot with no explanation or motive. The former is more “fun”, while the latter is more jarring.
The violence is grotesque in its realism, as far as Roblox games go. There isn’t a whole lot of blood, but that’s actually one of its more unnerving aspects. Due to the close proximity of the players, as well as the force from the gun, shot players are frequently launched out of their seats, slumping on the ground in impossibly-contorted heaps. Blood splatters against the chair or wall, rather than spraying all over like in other games on the platform. That helps to give it a more “authentic” feel than the cartoonish geysers that spray all over in other games.
But there are a few issues that truly hinder the game’s overall effectiveness.
The main disadvantage is that there’s very little in the way of replayability. “Breaking Point” gets it right by offering up a variety of different game modes to help keep things interesting. “The Test” is far more graphic, but very one-dimensional: Outside of its basic premise - which wears off rather quickly - the game quickly loses some of its appeal. For starters, the gun is always loaded and always goes off. It would be vastly more terrifying if the gun would occasionally jam, or if some of the chambers were empty. Imagine pointing the gun at someone, only to be met with the hollow sound of the hammer hitting an empty chamber. That surviving member would know your intention was to kill them, and be all the more motivated to return the favor in the next round.
The limited player count is also a point of contention. There are a max of four players per “game”. With one person guaranteed to die in each round, the games typically don’t last longer than two minutes. This is in stark contrast to “Russian Roulette”, which features up to eight players in each round. Those matches can go on for several minutes. While it sometimes feels drawn out - mainly when you’re waiting to rejoin the next “match” - every trip around the table creates a sense of mounting dread. In "The Test", there's no such lingering effect; the game is over before the psychological aspect has a chance to take hold.
And lastly, there’s very little variation in the questions. The solutions to the answers vary slightly, but the tasks themselves are the same ones I mentioned above, every single time. This gives clear advantages to players who have been playing for a long time, and can also alienate players who aren’t good at math. Meanwhile, the "cognitive" task seems to be rather impossible for mobile players: Far too often, I've been the first to complete it, despite having to restart multiple times.
It might work a little better with friends, but even then I think it would lose its luster rather quickly. If you’re looking for a short game that offers a quick jolt to the system, “The Test” delivers. But if you’re looking for something that’s going to keep you busy for a few days, it simply isn’t worth your time.
RATING: 4/10
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