So You Wanna Save The World - "Episode 1: Into The Fire" & "Episode 2: Sins Of The Past"

Photos above are properties of So You Wanna Save The World

Company: So You Wanna Save The World

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English

Type of Game: Digital Game 💻

Genre: Mystery/ Detective

Date Played: July 20, 2021

Size of Team: Unlimited (one game code per device)

Time: Unlimited

Game: Episode 1: Into The Fire

Difficulty (based on 3 players): 6.5/10

Price: Free

🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈

You are playing the role of Kenzie Keaton. It's just an ordinary day at your boring office job when...

---

Game: Episode 2: Sins Of The Past

Difficulty (based on 6 players): 5.5/10

Price: €30

🆃🅷🅴 🆂🆃🅾🆁🆈

Continuing on with the success of your first mission, you're assigned a new case. What will you have to do this time?

🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈

Once you register an account, all your purchased games will be saved in there. You can take as long as you like to finish the games and your progress will be autosaved. However, the timer will continue to be accounted for even if you log out of the account.

If you decide to play this game with a group, you can share your login or screen and join forces over Zoom. One person on the team must have a US or Canadian phone number as the game will be communicating with you via text and phone calls. One thing that we really liked is the fact that they provided a written transcript of the phone calls or messages as sometimes it could be hard to understand.

The game is broken into chapters filled with voice narrations and comic strip videos. After each story, evidence or clues will be inserted into the case file section. Once you solve the puzzle, access will be granted to the next chapter. If you need assistance, hints and solutions were provided within the case file. It was interesting to see that there was a percentage measurement per chapter on how many people took a hint for that puzzle. You can use this to determine the difficulty of a particular puzzle and see if you like to take a hint or not since if you want to get on the leaderboard you might want to reconsider.

Photos above are properties of So You Wanna Save The World

🆃🅷🅴 🅿🆄🆉🆉🅻🅴🆂

Both chapters incorporated some really clever way of using technology with the puzzle design. After decrypting hidden messages, we're "wowed" by hidden websites, images and more! At one point, we had to use a voice response to answer a certain puzzle and we haven't seen that used in any of the games we've played before.

Most of the puzzles were not difficult but we suggest taking good notes as information within the storyline could be used at a later time, We did get stuck on one puzzle for quite long as we weren't sure what the reference point was as that information was given awhile ago and not within the same frame of the puzzle. You'll also be needing the internet to do some sleuthing as this is a detective game after all. Some parts could be quite repetitive in terms of the searching but if you have a large team it'll be fun to divide the task.

Since the storyline was quite extensive and there were a lot of characters involved, its best to finish the entire episode at one time if possible. You might forget who's who and where the story is taking place if you leave it behind for too long. I know that a 10 minute penalty for one hint might seem too harsh, but it's worth to keep the momentum going rather than being stuck on the game for 30 minutes or more.

🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂

There were a lot of production value that went into this game. From the hand drawn comic strip graphics to the voice narrations and sound effects to the various websites and phone numbers, the game really made the players felt immersed in a world that made it hard for us to differentiate virtual versus reality. We always had to question ourselves before dialing or opening up a website.

For enthusiasts who are looking for just the satisfaction from solving puzzles, you might feel that the narration part is too long. Videos ranged from 1 minute to over 6 minutes each. You can drag and skip but that would defeat the purpose of enjoying this game as a cinematic experience. There were a lot of twist and turns in the storyline that you wouldn't want to miss (episode 3 is in the making!) I will still leave it for you guys to decide though as it's definitely a preference thing. One thing I will suggest to the creators is to be consistent with the voice narration as some characters spoke but others didn't.

Overall, this was a very refreshing digital game that contained many elements that we haven't explored with and it was nice to see the creators able to implement these technology into the online gaming world. It's too bad the current version only allow US and Canada players but if they can implement a version that will include a digital phone within the game I'm sure they'll be able to capture a wider audience!

---

*** We regret to inform this company has closed its do*ors **

Disclosure: We thank So You Wanna Save The World for providing us with a sample of the game. Although complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion of the review whatsoever.

#CiciCao #AtHomeGames #DigitalGame #USA #SoYouWannaSaveTheWorld #Mystery #Detective #freegame