In addition to the forty-eight challenge boxes available for single player, Open Me! also includes a robust creation suite for making your own devilish boxes. As your complete the game’s normal boxes, you’ll accumulate XP. These experience points can be cashed in for new contraptions and mechanics to add to your own personal box. After taking a picture of something you would like to use as a prize (PG-rated, of course), seal it away inside your box and send it out on the internet for other players to try. As other people attempt your puzzle box, XP will be sent back to you for every time you stump a player with a seeming impossible box, allowing you to unlock more tools and construct an even more elaboration contraption.
NOT
It should be a single player affair
Open Me! offers a unique mode allowing two players in a local vicinity (meaning no infrastructure play, for obvious reasons) to team up together and tackle unique challenge boxes dedicated for two sets of hands. These boxes are exclusive to the two-player modes as some require leapfrogging over one another to unlock one segment on a given box before continuing onto the next. As I was not able to locate a second person that owned Open Me! to test out this mode, it is difficult to rate this mode honestly. One issue I could foresee is having a game space large enough for both players to maneuver around each other while trying to work out some of the trickier sliding puzzles.
Controls can be a hassle
As everything in Open Me! is driven solely by touch, some of the more active puzzles can lead to tapping buttons too much or shaking your console just enough for the rear camera to lose sync with the AR cards. These periods of re-synchronization can lead to just barely missing the threshold for an A rank or even finishing a puzzle box entirely. Even walking too quickly around the box to get a better angle can frequently lead to these desyncs. In a game where each puzzle is a race against the clock, losing your place and having to wait for the system to catch up and recalculate your box can be quite frustrating in Open Me!
On some of the more technical boxes, playing too far from the system can lead to leaving some of the buttons too small to touch. Tapping the outside of a button will lead to nothing happening in addition to lowering the score at the end of a level due to wasted moves. Getting too close to the AR cards however will lead to a similar issue of losing connection with the AR marker and having to regain that connection before being able to continue on with the puzzles in Open Me!
VERDICT
Open Me! is one of the more novel projects to come from Playstation C.A.M.P. (while certainly not as quirky as Tokyo Jungle) and gives a bit more life into the Vita’s game library. Players that enjoy that feeling of solving a case in the Ace Attorney series or exploring the old island of Myst can appreciate the challenges to Open Me! If you’re in the mood to get a bit more active with your video games or are looking for the next good challenge can find plenty in Open Me!‘s mystery boxes.
[Editor’s Note: Open Me! was reviewed on the PS Vita platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
