There are no instructions, no rules. You can look up and down, turn around, climb stairs, wander all around the place. Everywhere your curiosity leads you, there are things to discover, learn and remember. There are machines you can operate, a library full of books you can open and read. After a while, the dedicated player will discover how to leave the island and go to other mysterious places.
Devotees say the game is properly played over weeks and even months.
But to do that, you must first figure out how the place works. What fascinates me here is not yet another sophisticated and clever way to waste time in front of the computer screen. It is the concept of a game whose purpose is for the player to discover the purpose. Virtual reality, schmirtual reality, this is no game. Upon hearing about all this, Alan Feldman, a friend who is a professor of English, suggested that it seemed a lot like childhood.