so what do these two have in common? they’re both meticulously crafted little puzzle boxes, the two i’ve most enjoyed in recent memory. in both i found puzzles that felt like they yielded to several possible solutions, yet ultimately fit into an overlying order.
asciivania reminds me of childhood fantasies informed by winnie the pooh cartoons, of exploring landscapes made of words, the abstract made tangible. the old “guru” who gives you a useful tool might here be represented by the word guru, which offers you one of its letters so that you may complete the word yourself. that’s what you do, use an increasing arsenal of letters to complete words and remove them from the landscape. there’s a lot of whimsy and cleverness here.
corrypt also reminds me of a childhood fantasy, a fairytale where you ultimately get what you wish for and discover it’s not what you wanted. it’s like the story of midas, where a gift turns out to be a curse. reminds me of a game i made. my friend channing discusses the story in greater detail, though i recommend playing the game first with your expectations unburdened. it’s free for windows and mac here, a buck for the ipad here.
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Asciivania is awesome, and reminds me that I wanted to ask – have you played Em Short’s Counterfeit Monkey? It’s in a similar vain, and it’s excellent.
I really enjoyed asciivania right until the point that I accidentally closed the tab, and discovered that none of my progress had been saved.
If that was just an aberration I’d like to try it again. (I also plan on trying Counterfeit Monkey v. soon!)
i’ve started counterfeit monkey and i really like it so far. need to play it more.
in corrypt i solved a bunch of tedious block-pushing puzzles and then i got my way blocked off forever in the “forest path” room and now i can apparently never progress without fully restarting and having to do the tedious puzzles again. this is all before i even got to play with the gimmick mechanic. bluh.
asciivania was hella sweet though.
Bob: you could hit undo I guess
undo doesn’t work. it teleports me out of the room but when I go back in it’s still in the broken state I left it in
It takes you back to just before you last entered the room. If you’ve been back and forth more than once, you’ll need to rewind further.
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