Detective 2: Han Island

I would congratulate this work on getting me riled up once again. Just like the blacksea island, this game embodies mystery in its finest glory. This game borrows the best parts of the first game ; the open world and the time counter.

Though from the very beginning my suspicions were already set on a certain person, I found the little clues spread throughout the island one of its charms. Even when I had finished the game, there were still small hints I didn't caught in my first playthrough. It really gave me the feeling of being a detective and investigating a case.

I didn't really have an affection for maps or navigation. Even though this game was more intuitive regarding its handling of its internal map in contrast to the first installment, I have found that I became quite disoriented around the windy forest parts and caves (there were around three of them, all with different names and I'm pretty bad with names).

To my knowledge, the game only has one small typo in the beginning (it's instead of its) , but the text in general was a pleasure to read. The prose didn't give me a headache and that's a real accomplishment.

For the people who want to finish the game yourselves, I have a last message to give. I can see that a lot of love and care went into this game. I can almost taste the sweat of hard work and dedication that went into typing and outlining the whole mystery. So ladies and gentleman, I command you to read this goddamn thing!

I look forward to the next installment!


SPOILERS and my dumb rambles and a little bit of gushing and SPOILERS

Okay, okay. Now we can go to the juicy bits. I don't know, but I completely missed the whole connection with the Smith family and our murder victim, though when I thought about it, it made a bit more sense. It still felt a bit contrived to be honest. However, I can say that it was at least a creative subplot. It connected the town history to the murder case and expanded the lore. That is always appreciated.

One thing I really liked was the fact that some clues were naturally inbedded into the dialogue. One example was the indentity of our lovely Bullet.
I came to find out about his identity when one character just casually talks about the victim and his daily life. It was just a small mention, but such a huge clue if you think about it.
Also, the little small mention of the guy, whose father was mysteriously killed, that he sold drugs to school children was also a brilliant hint to the true identity of the killer.
There was also such care put into the names of some of the characters. I like the fact that the victim's father was literally called Jesus while the victim's nickname is angel. The fact that his real name is Gabriel (also a biblical angel) makes this naming convention even funnier.

One big critique what I have is that you could have used your red herrings a bit more effectively so the killer's identitity wasn't that obvious, especially for someone who had read a lot of those detective stories before. I think that's also a problem the first story had, but I understand that you wouldn't want the game to be too difficult, especially for dumbasses like me. It's just all a balancing act.

I think that with a little tweaking you could have made the old guy in the museum a little bit more suspicious, especially when you emphasize his connection to the Smith family a little bit more and the fact that there could be rumour that a lot of old people know more about the caves and that they wouldn't want other people to know.

You could also just make the initial suspect which the police caught, a little bit more suspicious. One thing you could also do in future stories, in order to throw the reader off, is to let the killer frame another person by implanting false evidence throughout some locations. These are all just suggestions, do what you want with it.

I can also imagine that it's a bit difficult to manage the pacing and the delivery of clues in what's basically an open sandbox. The only thing you could do is to let characters remember your previous visits and then give out different or even conflicting information in contrast to their first responses. But then, it would be a pain to write and code that all in. I'm also already satisfied with the current style of the game design, it's pretty unique for the site, so radical change isn't really necessary in my opinion.

So with this sentence I will conclude my rambles.

I really loved it!
spoiler alert!
Truth be told, I had a suspect from the very beginning, with the letter, well normally when your friend is murdered the first thing you think about shouldn't be pirate treasure... So I guess he was quite obvious...

Did not dissapoint, once again, a complete masterpeice

I thought the storyline was a lot better than the first, but perhaps because I came up with my own strategy not to get lost amidst the many paths and forks again. Felt that it definitely required at least one replay to solve the mystery, and more than one replay to fully explore the game. Looking forward to more Knox mysteries!

A very clever mystery with well crafted clues sprinkled throughout in ways that help the player figure out who was the murderer without making it blatantly obvious. Overall another well crafted story.

I really wanted to like this.

But the world, as well-crafted as it was, just didn't react. I figured out where the treasure was, but when I went there, it was just another location. I couldn't try to dig it up. I figured out who Bullet was, but my dialog options for that character didn't change. I couldn't confront him.

Maybe I'm asking for too much. It was a clever mystery... I just didn't feel like I really got to solve it. Maybe next time!

This was great, definitely a step up from the first in all the right ways. The mystery was well thought out and I love the implementation and blending of historical and fictional events and legends. Each step of the puzzle seemed to blend together better with this installment, and the answer wasn't clear as quickly. Some little dialogue clues and townsfolk gossip was very clever, and there was one pretty crucial line that I read last time before I could really understand the significance. I ended up having to go back and explore in a second quick run before everything seamlessly clicked in my mind. I was honestly really pleasantly surprised with this, and recommend it! Really hoping to see more of young Detective Knox in the future :)

A worthy sequel to Blacksea Island, Han Island is a worthy second installment in the Susan Knox series. The clues were well-placed, phrasing was improved from the first story, and code cypher was especially clever and memorable. As with Blacksea Island, the story could have been improved with more proofreading (Gabriel's dad's name was written as John on the Suspects List, and there were numerous pronoun errors) and fewer dead end pages but more content on each dead end page, such as red herring clues and plot threads rather than Susan just doing nothing and leaving, so that readers are less subject to the whims of the random chance of which locations they happened upon containing the key clues and solving the case becomes more based on the reader's deduction skill level. Lastly, it was also nice to see a story set in the largest and most populous continent in the world, an uncommon setting of stories on this site.

After reading both of Susan's detective adventures, I can say the writing and mystery in this one have been vastly improved. I had a hunch on who the killer was from almost the get-go, probably thanks to the many hours spent reading/watching detective stories ;), and was glad to discover I was right! I experienced the satisfaction of solving the case and enjoyed the process of getting at the truth about the many mysteries of the island. The only downside that was passed on from the previous adventure is the navigation! While I do enjoy exploring the many locations on the island, a map would be highly useful so I hope to see one wherever the next adventure takes us. :)

Hey! Just played through Detective 2: Han Island and really enjoyed the gameplay. The style was fun and reminiscent of a lot of old-style text adventure puzzle-type games without bogging the reader down, and there were enough places to explore without getting stagnant. While you'd have to think a bit and process things, it wasn't too difficult as to be unplayable, and neither was it too easy to be solvable immediately.

What I enjoyed most about it was the atmosphere - it really captured the vibes of what a similar island might be like, deftly mixing fantasy and history to create an immersive vibe a reader could certainly enjoy. The little descriptions, the characters' vocabulary, and their manner of speaking proved to add color to a story that shows itself to be more than a detective game.

All in all, a fun play, and I'll be certain to come back to it! :)