Parents' Guide to Tower of Hell

Kids are dropped into the game with virtually no instruction or guidance on how to play -- and the confusion and frustration doesn't stop there. Although moving back and forth with the arrow keys is pretty self-explanatory, at least initially in Tower of Hell, kids can't choose or customize their avatar. What you need to do to jump and make other moves is completely unclear -- and the overall objective you're working toward isn't even mentioned. Kids basically just wander around and climb things such as a ladder-like structure in randomly generated scenes. They might then find another structure to ascend -- and have to figure out how to get from there onto a square step that's floating about an inch away. They can try to ask other users for tips in an ongoing chat shown in the upper left corner of the screen, but there's no guarantee anyone will answer.

The game design is fairly minimal. If you turn off the music, you'll repeatedly hear the "Boof!" sound produced when people bump into things. The controls can feel a bit clunky -- it's easy to walk into walls or other objects, and maneuvering along ledges and other structures can be awkward. In theory, that shouldn't be a problem for long, because you only have so much time in a scene. When the timer runs out, you'll be plopped in another scene, presumably with a goal of getting to the top of the room first -- which at times seems impossible, a not infrequent complaint among players in the on-screen chat. Without any basic guidance, it's easy to get frustrated, fast, and kids can't really learn much from their mistakes or use the experience to improve. Essentially, Tower of Hell ends up being one big guessing game -- and since all you're doing is trying, often unsuccessfully, to climb higher in settings that don't always seem too different, it isn't even a particularly fun one to play for long.