What would you do if you were put in front of a button and asked not to press it? In real life, maybe you’d comply. In a videogame called Please, Don’t Touch Anything, pressing that button is probably the first thing you’re going to do.
It’s also the only thing you actually can do, other than nothing, when the game begins. Who knows how you got into this situation, but your co-worker has asked you to cover for them while they go to the bathroom. All you have to do is sit there and wait. So, you find yourself staring at a metal box with a red button in the center and a small monitor above it. It looks like some sort of doomsday machine—and that’s one of the things it can turn out to be.
This being a videogame, you know that the box is full of puzzles. And you just can’t help hitting that button, can you?
Fiddle around enough and you’ll discover that developer Four Quarters have provided you with a great many things to touch; you just have to figure out how to reveal them. There’s a sheet of obscure instructions taped to the wall and it’s covered in hints. You’ll discover other hints, buttons, switches, and tools as you open up various panels and drawers concealed in the box.
The box is actually an entire collection of puzzles and puzzle threads. The threads overlap and branch, and if you solve a series of puzzles all the way through, you’ll be rewarded with one of the game’s 22 chuckle-worthy endings. Once you’ve seen one, you won’t want to rest until you’ve seen them all (though some are more mind-meltingly difficult to achieve than others).
Please, Don’t Touch Anything (which began life as a Ludum Dare entry) fits nicely into the tradition of meta-puzzlers that reveal a story as you go along. These are games like The Fool’s Errand, DEVICE 6, The Room, and The Guides, though Please, Don’t Touch Anything has much more of a sense of humor than any of those.
The box turns out to be just about everything you think it could be, and a few things you probably never imagined. Racking your brain and experimenting to unveil every ending is a joy. Add in the heap of achievements to unlock and you can be obsessing over this game for quite some time. Now how the heck do you get that last ending?
Please, Don’t Touch Anything is $4.99. It’s available for Windows and Mac. The soundtrack is $2.99, but you can buy the game and soundtrack together for $6.99.
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