Reviews by thesleuthacademy

The narrative and mechanics were engaging enough to draw me in after the first few minutes. There are multiple endings. I only realised that the red cards were meant to be "solved" after completing about 60-70% of the game. Ended up "restarting the day" some ten times and managed to solve 5 out of the 6 cards, with still a 71-74% completion rate which was admittedly frustrating. (Spoiler - click to show)I am not sure if the Basement is supposed to be a location card (which would make it the 13th of 15 locations)...? I felt that technically it should be the case, but it appears at the top half rather than in the Locations section.

The implementation bugs ruined a huge part of the experience for me - it is annoying when you had played through to 70% only for the text to be truncated, the links to not display properly, or (Spoiler - click to show)after Felisa wakes up and gets a stroke of sorts, her character card disappears and it's not possible to continue - I was forced to restart the game several times because of these glitches since it did not have a save and load feature.

Overall, I really enjoyed investigating the mystery but towards the end I had no choice but to give up because the bugs appear to make it impossible to complete.

I dismissed Missive (hehe) after my first playthrough a few months ago as I couldn't make sense of it. For some reason I came across this again recently and decided to give it another chance.

I was clueless about what the three choices for each letter meant on the first few playthroughs despite using the hints provided. My biggest takeaway from this game was that replaying through the various choices became part of the experience in the unravelling of the central mystery that is (Spoiler - click to show)what happened to Mr Astor. While I had some help decoding the cipher, I did not manage to figure out the crossword puzzle towards the end.

Contrary to what some reviews have mentioned, you need to get all six puzzles correct to solve the key mystery. (Spoiler - click to show)If you solved all six puzzles correctly, an additional choice will appear at the end - I felt this made it quite unfair to players, since, if they did not get the 6/6 score, the key mystery remains unsolvable for them.

It was still an enjoyable mystery nevertheless. All in all, while the game mechanics make for an interesting way to investigate a mystery, it would be great if it were "cleaner" (less vulgarities and vices) and if the puzzles were slightly easier (I had to dig up earlier reviews for clues for many of these, though it was a fun investigative venture in itself).

I liked how it's heavy on deduction skills and how it just cuts to the chase with the narrative. Short and sweet; totally my cup of tea. I find the deduction stage somewhat unique in that you first get to choose options from dropdown menus, and then if you've got it all correct, submit a written report of the details of what you thought happened, which allows you to then compare your report with the truth of the matter. The truth of the mystery made a lot of sense with the clues hidden in the narrative. Hope to see more of such works!

Looked promising till I got hopelessly stuck (Spoiler - click to show)after shooting a figure that keeps reappearing.. A walkthrough or a hint system would have been great. Spotted a few typographical errors. Some of the exits don't quite make sense - I could go "out" but not use cardinal directions to exit a location.

Another gem found. Appreciated the depth of exploration for a one-hour game, the beautiful pixelated old-school graphics(!), and the ease of gameplay (well I liked that you don't need a walkthrough for this; the in-game hint system was simple but sufficient to point you in the right direction when you need one. The difficulty was just right and that was a significant part of the fun). Was stuck at the very last part in (Spoiler - click to show) catching the main criminal but managed to figure it out eventually after a few failed attempts. Minor glitch encountered where (Spoiler - click to show) the turtle reappeared and I could take the turtle even though I had already done so, after revisiting the fountain the second time. (Spoiler - click to show)Wasn't quite sure what the microphone on the box in the villa was about though, and didn't manage to find the other puzzle piece for the mosaic wall either, but one could still complete the mission without these.

Plot could have been more well-developed. More of a comedy than a detective mystery. Oh and the music is on point!

A simple yet adequate murder mystery plot with sufficient suspects and clues. Was stuck towards the end when I couldn't get the suspect to talk, so had to rely on peeking at a walkthrough, but otherwise most things made sense. Would be great to have an in-game hint system, and anticipate other commands to minimise the "There is no reply" response. Would also be nice if there were more plot development, but otherwise I am glad to have found this.

Very impressively designed on an unconventional platform. The mystery storyline (twists included) was intriguing enough for me to want to finish all five chapters at one go. Can be played without much reference to the walkthrough (I had to use it two to three times as I was stuck at a few puzzles in the later chapters). I liked how the puzzles became more difficult as one progressed in the game. Appreciated the informative details provided at the end as well. You could also explore multiple endings. Creating IF games just became a lot more accessible for those who are programming-naive. Highly recommended!

This is one game in which I actually didn't know what was going on or what I should do until I gave up and that was when the "Aha" moment struck me. 'Nuff said. (Spoiler - click to show)Bittersweet.

Interesting way to craft an IF game! Short but it was fun while it lasted. Lovely colour scheme too. Would’ve been great if there was more than one puzzle.