Missing Translation Review

by Corey McCrea

October 7, 2015

PC

 

Story

The computer screen emits a harsh white light that your eyes reluctantly receive as you recline in your chair browsing the internet. You look for anything entertaining to improve what was this lazy, boring day. Looking away from your memes for a moment you let your eyes adjust to the darkness of the night. As you look at the ticking clock on the back wall you realize that it’s much later than you thought. Tired and weary you get up from your computer and shuffle off to bed; you’ll pick up where you left off tomorrow.

 

As you sink into bed the sheets greet you like a warm wave, but one that isn’t wet and is also made of cotton. You close your eye and try to let your mind wander its way into sleep. But, with the light of the monitor still burned into you retinas you struggle to find sleep. After tossing around the sheets in a futile attempt to get comfortable you figure you have to do something to relax. A late night stroll seams appealing.

You get up out of the warmth of bed and dress to leave the house. After locking up the front door you begin your walk down the cement sidewalk, and in the dewy silence of the night you ponder. Ponder about life, meaning, relationships, dank memes, and your future.

 

With a start you are lifted off the ground by an unseen force! You float several feet off the ground! Things around you start to fade and through the hole of a bright rhombus you are cast into a new, inventive world of puzzles! How curious. Can you get back home?

 

Style

Missing Translation caught my eye on Steam one day. Mainly because it’s free but I suspect it may not be that way forever, considering it has won several awards. This unique black-and-white puzzle game was created by the relatively new game making company AlPixel Games, and takes place in a postmodern western landscape.

 

I first thought the black and white style would be a detriment to the game, but actually, I think it was a great creative choice. It amplified the simple goal of the game to just solve puzzles and it gave the game a mechanical feel, in a good way. I feel like it really represented the process of solving a puzzle in a way that you are either right or wrong. There’s no “color” in between. Missing Translation has a bit of a crude look to it, though. It can’t really put my finger on it but it looks like a game that isn’t quite finished. It had beautiful visuals in the intro but during the gameplay I felt like something was missing. It may have just been how simple the design is, but it left me wishing there was something more to what I was seeing.

 

Gameplay

I like puzzles and while this game at points did have its challenges, it was nothing that was too difficult. Missing Translation was a short, relaxing video game (which I thought humorous considering the situation our main character was in) that challenges you to complete 3 puzzles. To get back home you need to complete all 25 levels of each puzzle, and while this little game had my attention for a short while, it didn’t leave any intense lasting impressions. In fact when I finished the game I thought there would be more to do. But alas, I was disappointed. Now, this game was originally an app for Android, so I can understand why it’s rather short. But come on. There’s got to be something more you can do to this game when you adapt it for a computer. It’s got no replay value.

 

Music

The music is hands down my favorite aspect of this game (It shouldn’t be that the music is better than the game really, but that’s nothing against the Composer). Albert Fernández Ventura really did great job of making the game more engaging. It definitely would have been a very dull game if it had not been for the music. The only thing I thought odd about the music was that it didn’t loop. It would move to the next song as soon as one ended. Each location did have its own set of songs, but there was no real theme for each location, just a track list. Just a small complaint. Now, I need to remember to buy the soundtrack to this game soon!

 

Issues

NO FILE LOADING SYSTEM! Story time: I accidentally skipped the intro to the game and had somehow chosen the female character. I really wasn’t upset about playing as a girl. I was upset that there is no way I could figure out how to reset the game! I was actually pretty mad about it at the time. I spent a few hours trying to figure out how to delete the game history from Steam, but it was all for nothing. No matter what I did every time I deleted the game and re-downloaded it the game would return me to where I was when I first played. I caved, gave up trying to reset it, watched the intro on youtube, and finished the game from where I left off. It unfortunately left a sour taste in my mouth after playing this sweet game. And all this could have been avoided if there was a file system that can load and delete game progress!

 

Other than that mishap, I felt the game was missing some sort of depth. There was really no story. It kind of just started and ended abruptly without any explanation as to why things happened. I went along with what the game threw at me but I had no idea what was going on with the main character and other NPCs in the game.

 

Conclusion

In no way did I dislike this game. It was a nice game with puzzles, good art, great music, and a simple objective: figure out these puzzles to get back home. It’s a great game to play if you’ve got some free time and just wanna relax for a bit. I just hope that at some point AlPixel Games works on Missing Translation again because I actually really liked it. It just left me wishing there was more substance.

 

Rating: GOOD/10

+Puzzle Game

+Relaxing

+Great Music

+Black and White

- Short

- Looks Unfinished

- No File System

- Not Much Story

 

 If you liked Corey's review, you can check out his other stuff on his Youtube channel, CoreyView!