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3 people found the following review helpful:
 A game (in)famous for its main challenge: understanding a nonsense language, February 3, 2016The Gostak is one of those games that everyone hears about eventually. Some play it, some stay far away. I didn't get past the first room when I first played it, felt scared, and put it off for five years. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Remove vote | Add a comment
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6 people found the following review helpful:
A rorm and snave halpock, October 23, 2014by Sobol (Russia) It's tavid to doatch about this halpock without fargishing scurm-brolges; let's just doach it's very snave, rorm and dobbly... if somewhat dunmile. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Remove vote | Add a comment
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12 people found the following review helpful:
The map is not the territory, March 26, 2014by Snave This is a game for experienced players, not just because it practically requires knowledge of genre conventions, but because the way The Gostak obfuscates its output is pushing directly against an old-school drive: the player's desire to construct a mental model of the game world. For old-school games, this often also means drawing an actual map on paper. Here, there are only a handful of rooms, but you have to start taking notes and make your own little dictionary before you can start connecting any of them, let alone visualize what's supposed to be in them. Understanding the language is the main puzzle of the game, and it's a great one. As you build your vocabulary and your understanding of objects and the relationships between them, descriptions that were impenetrable nonsense at first glance become more and more sensible until you're reading fairly naturally and typing back commands that would seem like crazy talk to anyone looking over your shoulder. It's extremely satisfying. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Remove vote | Add a comment
1 of
1 people found the following review helpful:
More a metagame than a game, March 14, 2012by Jeff Zeitlin (Greater New York Area) The game itself isn't much, in the sense of having an extensive world, but I found this not to be a detraction. For me, the attraction was in the solving of the language puzzle, and led to quite a bit of reflection on my own thought processes and on language acquisition through immersion. (Spoiler - click to show)I can't recommend this for someone who is not familiar with the 'Zorkian' response conventions; I don't believe someone lacking that familiarity will be able to get a reasonable foothold into the game. For someone with that grounding though, I strongly recommend it. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Remove vote | Add a comment
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