Is The Turing Test worth it? Reviews, price & vibe

Is The Turing Test worth it?

The Turing Test is worth it if…

you like first-person puzzle games with a story that keeps asking questions
you want something philosophical you can finish in an evening or two
you enjoyed Portal or The Talos Principle and want a quieter, more serious take
you prefer thinking to shooting: there is no combat and nothing chases you
you like optional challenges that reward going off the main path

Screenshots

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Power as a puzzle piece

Your tool is the Energy Manipulation Tool, and it does one thing well: it picks up energy orbs and fires them into machines. Some machines need constant power, some run on a timer, some only need a jolt at the right moment. A door, a giant magnet, a moving platform: every obstacle is really a question about where the power should go.

The rooms start simple. You pull an orb from one socket, shoot it into another, the door opens. Then the base starts layering in cranes, pressure plates and devices with their own quirks, and a room becomes a small machine you have to understand before it will let you through. There are around 70 of them across seven chapters, plus one optional puzzle hidden in each chapter that trades extra difficulty for extra lore. The difficulty curve is gentle: it ramps up steadily, and most people finish without ever needing a guide.

A mystery with teeth

The missing crew left the tests behind on purpose. Why would people lock their own rescuer out, and why design the locks so an AI cannot open them? That question carries the whole game. Tom, the station's AI, guides you through the base and talks with you as you descend deeper into Europa's ice, and his calm voice is half the atmosphere: the soundtrack and the empty corridors do the rest.

Halfway through, the story throws a turn that changes what the puzzles mean, and later you switch between perspectives to solve the hardest rooms. The game is serious rather than funny, and it ends on a moral choice with three possible endings. It asks what separates a human mind from a machine, and it wants you to form your own theory about the crew before it tells you. At five to ten hours, it says what it needs to and stops.

How hard are the puzzles?

How hard are the puzzles, really?

Fair but not brutal. The main path builds up gradually, adding new machines and twists at a steady pace, and several people finished the whole game without a guide. The optional puzzle in each chapter is where the real difficulty lives: some of them are harder than anything on the critical path, and one is famously tricky. If a puzzle game has ever made you feel your head might explode, this one will not.

Can you play it solo?

Yes, it is a singleplayer game from start to finish. Everything, the story, the 70 test rooms and the optional puzzles, is built around one person working through the base alone, with Tom along as company.

How long does it take to finish?

Most first playthroughs land somewhere between five and ten hours, depending on how quickly the puzzles click and whether you chase the optional rooms. It is short by design: seven chapters, a clear ending, no padding.

Do your choices matter?

The puzzles have one intended solution each, so the real choice comes at the end: the epilogue hands you a moral decision with three possible endings. The story also leaves room to theorise, since the fate of the crew is something you piece together rather than get handed.

The Turing Test Puzzles only a human can solve