Scarlet Envelope: Time Trap Island / Scarlet Manuscript

Review

Game Description

Time Trap Island:
“Welcome to Time Trap Island, where reality is twisted and the very fabric of the universe is messed up. Formerly the base of a secretive Red Letter Corp., the Island is now a playground of dangerous anomalies. What kind of Interdimensional Science Project went wrong here? And what do you have to do to ESCAPE?”

Scarlet Manuscript:

“Within your XII envelope lies an authentic page from the Scarlet Manuscript, yours to decode. Continue tracing the steps of our mysterious secret society as you seek the legendary door to the Athenaeum—the gateway to interdimensional travel.”

Personal Experience

I came really close to catching up on Scarlet Envelope before the final envelope arrived, but a little game named Blue Prince derailed those plans admirably. However, with the final envelope in hand, I decided to go ahead and play the two-part finale back to back.

Time Trap Island was first and ended up being one of my favorite installments in the series. Well balanced puzzles and an interesting story made the 90 minutes I spent with it fly by.

This was followed by Scarlet Mansucript, which was—unsurprisingly for it being the finale—the toughest Scarlet Envelope experience to date. It was also the most beautiful, as I’ll talk about below. Overall it took me a little under 2 hours to unlock inter-dimensional travel and finish my initiation.

Narrative

Time Trap Island is a clear homage to Lost and the fictional Dharma Corporation, and it works really well with Scarlet Envelope’s conspiracy-tinged meta-narrative. The story is told through a combination of the physical props that come with the game and through a well-designed web-interface that simulates the vintage mainframe system installed on the island. There are a lot of little narrative touches throughout the experience that humanize the fictional workers and add a bit of depth to the proceedings. (Hang in there Jon Ho!) Overall I’d put it right up there with Ashes of Persepolis as my favorite narrative from the team.

Scarlet Manuscript on the other hand was a far lighter narrative experience, which makes a certain amount of sense: previous installments were about trying to solve mysteries to help others, in this installment you’re trying to solve a mystery to help yourself. That said, it’s by far the most gorgeous experience that Scarlet Envelope has released, with the centerpiece being a double-sided manuscript page that looks straight out of a Postcurious experience. The manuscript is put to excellent use, densely packed with potentially relevant clues.

After completing Scarlet Manuscript, it was finally time to use those hidden letters I’ve been saving for the last four years. While I was hoping for some big meta-puzzle, it ended up being a more straightforward reward for completing all of the envelopes. It was a nice moment though, and came with a small keepsake to add to my keepsake shelf.

Puzzle Play

The puzzles in Time Trap Island were well done and nicely balanced with some good aha moments sprinkled throughout. They ranged in difficulty from medium difficulty to medium-hard. I really liked how well they tied into the narrative theme as well. Overall a really well done experience. The only stumbling block for me throughout the experience was a puzzle that involved being able to name colors to solve a puzzle, but after struggling for a little while with it, I realized I could back-solve for the color names.

Scarlet Manuscript, though, was very tough—easily the most difficult experience of the entire series, which is saying something. I’m not ashamed to say that I leaned hard on the hints section for about half of the puzzles in this experience. While tough, it was still enjoyable to play through the experience. The final puzzle—of the experience and the series—was especially impressive and memorable. This was also a color-blind friendly experience, with no color-identification or distinguishing required.

Both experiences featured hint sites that are, as always, gated behind a somewhat easy puzzle.

Recommendation

Overall, the Scarlet Envelope series has been an ambitious series, constantly reimagining itself with each installment. There have been highs and lows, but it’s always been interesting and fun. I’m not sure if the creators have anything else planned in the future, but I’ll be keeping an eye on them if they do.

I still recommend that most people start with Scarlet Envelope’s first experience Newspaper: Intro to Mysteries to get a taste of what they’re all about and then play through the whole experience if they enjoy it. In that linked review I also discuss whether you should go for the Starter/Regular or Experienced track.