No Case Should Remain Unsolved

This was a really neat short 2 hour game that I finished in one sitting! I had been eyeing it since the pixel art looked nice and the summary seemed cool too, I was still quite pleasantly surprised with how the game turned out.

First, I think the presentation of the game was fantastic. The way conversations are organised, the way there are images associated with some textboxes, the music, and the colouring all did a great job at setting the right sort of tone. The only problem I’d say was that there were times when scrolling wasn’t exactly smooth, i.e getting from point A to B when they were far was a bit rough, but tbh I don’t know how they would’ve fixed that (maybe have jumping points? Like even just to each character).

But part of the reason why I wanted to do this was to summarise both my thoughts and my understanding of the story. Unfortunately I do not have the names memorised, but I’ll try my best regardless!

First off, the story is presented as you are a 70+ year old retired police officer who worked missing persons. You’re thinking back at one case that you had never resolved and another younger officer comes in ready to help guide you through your extremely fragmented thoughts and memories. The game starts off by giving you a few conversations, and then keywords that help connect to other conversations that allow you to begin piecing the story together.

This is where I think the game is pretty brilliant. The gameplay mechanics are quite simple, you match keywords with conversations to unlock new conversations, some conversations require you to find information (like date of birth, or answer questions with evidence), and you also can rearrange conversation order and speaker, because when you unlock a new conversation piece, it is not necessarily associated with the right speaker or time. As you rearrange conversations, you also get gold fragments which unlock a key that you can then use to unlock other conversation pieces. That pretty much sums up all the gameplay, but I really, really, really, like how it ties into the story.

The narrative and gameplay both centre around how the main character has problems remembering events. So her understanding of what happened is fragmented and there are pieces missing. As you “talk” with the officer that visits and remember events, the story becomes more and more clear.

There are no crazy mind blowing twists, but I think narratively this is done to set up an amazing moment because the first two characters you are shown are the missing girl’s, Seowon, parents. As you continue to unlock more and more conversations, you start to realise there are contradictions. Perhaps the biggest first one is learning that Seowon is dead. But, you also learn that Seowon is alive?

As you continue to piece together more memories and connect the conversations, you then realise that there are in fact, two Seasons. And that’s the sort of crux of the mystery as things start to fall in place. I love the feeling of slowly realising the crucial part of the mystery as things begin unravelling. The second best part of it is the motivations for each character. You see that everyone is indeed lying, but all to protect someone else. Before I continue with that, I figure now is a good time to piece together a sort of timeline of events as I understand them.

The chronology of events begins with 2012-02-03. On this day, Choi Seowon’s father (i think) makes a report about his missing daughter. He explains that the caregiver for his children has been looking for them ever since they went to the park.

At the park, Seowon and her brother along with their caregiving (Hyeong?) go to the park as is part of their routine. Her brother and the caregiver do not have the best relationship. The children’s biological mother passed away due to medical issues, and a caregiver had been taking care of them since they were young. I do not know if for sure the caregiver is in a relationship with the father, but I didn’t really get that impression. However, for Seowon who did not have a mother figure, she called the caregiver mother.

This bothered the brother, Myeong?, because he still had memories of his mother. Before his mother passed, she told him that she’d be watching him from Heaven, something he knew that was a lie. She also said that since she could no longer pick him up from school when it was raining, she would ask God to make it stop raining. Since he did not believe her, he always carried an umbrella.

So as a result, Myeong would ask Hyeong to not accompany them to the park since he claimed he was careful enough to take care of Seowon. However, on this day, he had wanted to buy Seowon’s favourite candy in addition to a birthday card for Hyeong. The sweets store owner noted this, and he even knew that the kid stole the card. During this period of time though, Seowon had disappeared.

At the same time, Hyeong had actually been watching the two of them behind a wall. In addition to not being wanted there by Myeong (which was a sort of misunderstanding as Myeong did still care for her), other parents near the playground had eyed her suspiciously. So she resorted to watching by a wall. However, someone called her which pulled her away, and during this period of time Seowon disappeared.

What had happened was that another person, Minyeong had been in the area and picked up Choi Seowon. Why? Years prior, Minyeong had lost her own child named Seowon. She became severely mentally ill. Eventually, she became convinced that her child was alive and had simply not returned home yet.

In the past, her husband and her had a kid that was premature and sickly. She passed away of natural causes, no fault of either of them, but it had inflicted a mental wound on the mother. They ended up separating, something that the grandmother resented the father for. But the father had neglected to file the death certificate.

This resulted in Minyeong (who lived with her mother at the time) to receive a certificate from city hall dictating that her child Seowon was enrolled. Delighted, it was the first time she had smiled in a long long time. However, since her daughter had not returned, she began looking in playgrounds desperate to find her missing child.

It was at that time when she had heard Choi Seowon’s brother refer to her as Seowon. As a result, Minyeong thought she had finally found her daughter and took her home with her. This is the series of events that led to the kidnapping on February 3rd.

On the fourth is when another series of events begin happening. First off, the police officer receives a report from city hall about how there are some children that have not attended the pre-attendance for school. One of the names listed in the report is Kim Seowon. This causes her to wonder if it’s just a coincidence or not, and begin investigating details.

This leads to a series of different investigations. First, she pays a visit to Minyeong’s house and asks to see Seowon who is sleeping at the time. This is Choi Seowon, who was “kidnapped” but really had just gone along with Minyeong. She calls her aunty, and part of the reason she’s so calm and prepared is that I think the teacher explains that she’s extremely nice, and she also doesn’t cry. Part of the reason why she doesn’t cry is she thinks of her mom, and thinks of her as the saddest person in the world. This part I’m not 100% sure…

In either case though, nothing seems “wrong”. But Gyeong, the officer, continues to investigate. She calls the grandmother who insists that nothing is wrong, she only missed the attendance thing because she was sick.

The next day, everything becomes more clear and resolves. First, she understands that many people are lying here. There are contradictions in many people’s testimonies, which I’m not going to go into detail about, since it’s impossible for me to remember what was a lie or not. But what is important is that on this day, the father of Kim Seowon returns Choi Seowon to her father who is eternally grateful.

During this time period however, what had happened is that Minyeong had gone over to her mother’s house, expecting her mother to pick up Choi Seowon. But as they arrive, they realise that neither of them had picked her up. As a result, in a panic, Minyeong reports her child as missing.

When the child gets reported as missing, a few more things happen that I forget the exact ordering of. I believe the father of Kim Seowon returns Choi Seowon to her parents, and why is because the grandmother had helped him do so to return Choi Seowon. The grandmother realised this was terrible, but also didn’t want her daughter to be a kidnapper. But this causes Minyeong to lose her mind and file the missing persons report.

Thankfully though, Choi Seowon is alive and well. The father begs Gyeong to not mark the case as solved because that missing persons report will help tie Minyeong to reality.

I skimmed over a bit at the end since some of the details slip my mind, but that’s basically the series of events. I honestly really liked how the premise seems much more dramatic than it really is, it’s just a sad story about a mother and her lost child, and a child and her lost mother. Perhaps that’s what led them to each other.

Minyeong’s story is also very tragic. The end reveal where it’s shown that the perspective had been from Minyeong all along and that she had been just piecing together the story from the bits that Gyeong had told her was nice.

I’m losing a bit of steam, but I really wanted to say that I liked the author’s message at the end. It’s cheesy, but I really liked that it’s about kindness. Every lie told, every action taken, it was meant to help someone else. They all thought about each other, just like how Gyeong had taken it out of her day after retirement to find Minyeong and try to get her the help she needs. It was a good kind of bittersweet.