The Missing Ring

A clean and light-hearted family mystery, with a hint of humour. (Spoiler - click to show)I was reminded of the quote from Sherlock Holmes: "... When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" when the time came to deduce who did it.

I particularly appreciated the notes which provided useful direction, and I felt that the game mechanics were skillfully crafted - the initial gameplay was pretty straightforward, but after the first statements were taken from all suspects, it became a lot less obvious as to how one should proceed (but by then one would have gotten the hang of exploring the house and locating the characters to unveal further revelations).

In this Twine game you play the role of Sadie, age 15, who investigates the disappearance of your grandmother's diamond ring during Christmas. You will need to question the entire family to figure out what happened. The pacing is fine. There isn't any "real" puzzles, as you are more or less guided through the game by a very user-friendly interface, which includes the ability to check your notes, which includes several clues on what to do. Still, most things can be done in any order.

The writing is good and I was curious to find the truth behind the mystery. And technically everything worked as expected. There were also some funny moments. To sum up, this is a good game, which I recommend.

I really enjoyed this game in Introcomp, and the finished version is even better.

This isn't a grandiose or intense game. This game is just like an Agatha Christie story, with great attention to psychology and detail.

It manages to have a lot of material you have to plow through without feeling too much like lawnmowering. The author has a lot of context-sensitive programming with inventory-based puzzles, and that's what gives this game a good 'choice feel', if that's even a phrase.

You are at a hectic Christmas Eve dinner and Grandma's ring turns up stolen. It's your job to track down the culprit before the police have to be called.

Overall, this was my favorite Spring Thing game. Well done.