Ratings and Reviews by Ivanr

The title of this review sums up roughly 90% of what I have to say about Open Up!; it's a particularly cute and satisfying coda to Birdland. Of course, I could say something about how the characters in Birdland are sufficiently well-executed that it would make me happy that they are happy; but that would really be the domain of a review of Birdland. Play this after playing that one, of course.

In sum: Cute!

...I mean that kindly! Most parser comp entries these days are notably "new school" or newer, but How to Win at Rock Paper Scissors is of some other, earlier school which I will not pretend to taxonomize, since our periodizations seem to change constantly.

What I'm trying to say is. How to Win at Rock Paper Scissors is a fun and funny chilled-out get-X-use-X jaunt, with various lock-and-key puzzles that involve some clever lateral thinking and some notably uninteractive NPCs. It's a relaxing style of game, good for a lunch break, rarely seen in the wild these days. Like its 2007 counterparts, HTWARPS is a little unpolished, but it doesn't much affect one's enjoyment, and the clever error messages are of the more amusing kind.

So, nothing hugely substantial, but good fun. I'm glad that such things are still being made.

The Ascent of the Gothic Tower is a strange game. Even though the player character's objective is made incredibly clear - to ascend the tower - the experience of playing it feels almost aimless. In away, Ascent is a distillation of one particular theme that runs through many of Veeder's works: "hidden" or tucked-away content, rooms that are fascinating but fully optional, whole complex subsystems, as complex as the rest of the game put together, that an inattentive player could never know they missed. In fact, The Ascent of the Gothic Tower has so much of this kind of thing that it almost feels like the whole game is optional - a sort of array of strange places and interesting experiences, that don't seem to represent any meaningful journey on the part of the player character; I think this feeling is magnified, not diminished, by the fact the player character is embarking on such a literal and (by authorial fiat) emotionally significant journey.

None of this is to say that The Ascent of the Gothic Tower is not a good time. It certainly is! Veeder's mastery of the craft of interactive fiction is on full display here, with charming and well-implemented subsystems of all sorts, and an occasionally eloquent narrator-PC who has his own sort of off-kilter charm.

Playing The Ascent of the Gothic Tower feels like wandering around in a huge, empty, static palace of stone. You have no reason to be there, and no reason to keep moving forward, other than that it's beautiful, and you want to stay. And the fact that you do want to stay is a testament to Veeder's excellent craftsmanship.