Mystery of the Malign

Mystery of the Malign is a detective adventure game about uncovering a supernatural conspiracy at a museum. It combines traditional first-person exploration with fill-in-the-blanks puzzle-solving. There are a large number of puzzles and they’re quite high-difficulty, but it’s not necessary to solve every one of them to reach an ending.

It’s a first-person 3D game with retro, Playstation 1-era low-poly graphics. You play a paranormal investigator who is trying to solve a bizarre assault case that took place on the grounds of a history museum. Some of the museum’s exhibits turn out to be imbued with supernatural powers, and it quickly becomes clear that there is more going on than meets the eye.

Part of the game operates like a classic first-person adventure: you explore the grounds, examine things, use inventory items on things, and find the right keys to unlock different areas. Important objects get added to a list of clues. Then when you talk to NPCs, you can interrogate them about any of the clues you’ve found so far, which can in turn unlock new clues if they know something useful. When you think you have everything you need, you can allow time to pass, which takes you to the next major plot event.

The other half of the game involves filling out your case notebook. When a major plot event happens, a case gets added to your notebook. Each case is broken down into case scenes, which are fill-in-the-blanks puzzles using the clues you’ve found. Some are sentences describing the events of the scene, while others involve placing NPCs in the right locations or identifying the purpose of different artifacts. There are also stand-alone puzzles located around the map that you can find and solve. The frames around the puzzles change color when you have all the clues you need to complete the puzzle, but otherwise, there are no hints or assistive features.

Unlike most other deduction-based detective games, Mystery of the Malign also has a branching narrative and multiple possible endings. You can choose to confront the perpetrators with your evidence, which takes you immediately to the climax scene, but how the confrontation goes depends on how much of the story you’ve solved. This will cut off your ability to gather more clues and solve the remaining cases, so be sure not to take that option until you’ve solved everything you want to solve.

This description was written by Gwen C. Katz.