Anyone remember the Ren and Stimpy episode where Stimpy had to resist touching the ”shiny…red…button”. That’s kind of how I felt playing Please, Don’t Touch Anything on the Oculus Rift; a game (and I use the word loosely) that leaves you alone in a small room in a bunker basement while your co-worker uses the bathroom. This new Oculus version is a fully realized 3D interactive world unlike the 2D version of the game to release on Steam last year. And even if you have already played the original, many of those puzzles have been modified and there are five new puzzles exclusive to VR.
So, when the experience starts you can pretty much swivel around in the virtual chair in which you’re seated, and touch either the big red button or the red reset button that…you guessed it…resets the puzzle. There are more than 20 insanely difficult puzzles/activities to discover/complete, and they all start with the press of that shiny…red…button. Where you go from there is entirely up to you and pretty much the concept for the rest of the game that – if you don’t cheat – could take you a hundred hours to complete.
At the time of this review, I’ve completed about 75% of the puzzles. You can keep track by the row of lights on the front-left of the panel that indicate which puzzles you have solved. Much of the game is memorization, especially since it’s difficult to jot down notes while wearing the Oculus Rift. Honestly, I only solved about half of the puzzles on my own before heading to YouTube to get some help, but most of the videos are based on the PC version, so things are significantly different. Plus, if you plan on cheating it helps to have a partner who can be watching the videos and giving you instructions.
A few of the puzzles are easy to figure out while others would be nearly impossible without some sort of guide. Here’s a freebie. One puzzle can only be completed at the stroke of midnight, so unless you happen to be playing the game AND working on that one particular puzzle you might never see the item that gets the rest of the puzzle rolling. Hint: the clock in the office is synced to your computer’s clock so you can force this puzzle by changing your system clock temporarily.
The game is loaded with secret panels and fun discoverable objects that are all triggered by various button sequences and patterns, but even more amusing are the pop cultural references hidden throughout the game. The developers must have been big fans of Office Space with jokes about TPS reports and a Swingline stapler as a trophy reward for completing one puzzle.
I realize the more I write the more I am going to spoil something, so I’m going to stop now and simply state that Please, Don’t Touch Anything is a kooky and entertaining virtual pastime that will melt your brain. We’re talking puzzles with solutions that are so obscure you’ll think you are playing The Witness. And even when I did cheat, I always tried to reverse-engineer the puzzles to find out how they reached their conclusions.
Interestingly enough, Please, Don’t Touch Anything also makes a great party game since those watching will have just as much fun trying to figure things out and telling the player what to try next. For only $9 you will easily get 10+ hours of brain-teasing fun out of this experience, and if you don’t cheat you may never fully solve every puzzle lurking behind that shiny…red…button.
