Missive

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).