Which boxes did I skip?

[Fendse]

SPOILERS AHEAD.

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So, I just played this game, by the end I was stuck for a bit. After making a somewhat, but not really, well-founded guess (that "PH", "Paul" and "Helliwell" were all the same person) and a lucky search in the index (a location I knew "PH" was involved with, the year when "Paul" was involved with a meeting between Houghton and Wilson, and the lastname "Helliwell") I found, well, the end of the game.

After going into explore mode, I found that I'd missed 5 documents on my way there:

• A newspaper page dated 1977 with the headlines A Solicitor and a Soldier and Nugan Hand Opens New Branch In Chiang Mai
  
• A message dated 1977 where someone "fully support[s] extending Nugan Hand's responsibilities in Southeast Asia" after Air America's involvement became known
  
• The lower half of a photo of Helliwell, Hand and Nugan
  
• The upper half of a transaction record dated 1975 from someone in Chiang Mai, mentioning "Paul Helliwell"
  
• A CIA operational review for the "Air America" operation initiated by Helliwell, with the objective of transporting "food, personnel, and strategic resources"

I was wondering where in the index I would've found these documents if I hadn't accidentally skipped them?

[colestia3]

Hey! Nice work finding the Helliwell file like that! I don't think anyone actually put those clues together during the play-testing.

(Apologies for the big block of spoiler text)

For the missing documents, there's a file in box OS 615/53 that talks about a meeting between Ed (Wilson), MH (Michael Hand), and an unidentified person. The meeting took place "last year" (1977) in Hong Kong. So if you look up East Asia - 1977 - Wilson / Hand, you'll get the reference OS 449/13.

That box gives you the 1977 news article, the 1977 message, the Air America operational review, and a "Marked For Disposal" card referencing OS 755/20. The new box gives you the top half of the transaction record and the bottom half of the photo (which are then supposed to point you to Paul Helliwell).

From memory, there are also some weaker clues pointing you towards Southeast Asia - 1977 - Hand (which will also get you to OS 449/13). But the OS 615/53 document is the main route (and in hindsight, it seems a lot less obvious than when I first designed it...)

[Fendse]

Originally posted by colestia3:

Hey! Nice work finding the Helliwell file like that! I don't think anyone actually put those clues together during the play-testing.

(Apologies for the big block of spoiler text)

For the missing documents, there's a file in box OS 615/53 that talks about a meeting between Ed (Wilson), MH (Michael Hand), and an unidentified person. The meeting took place "last year" (1977) in Hong Kong. So if you look up East Asia - 1977 - Wilson / Hand, you'll get the reference OS 449/13.

That box gives you the 1977 news article, the 1977 message, the Air America operational review, and a "Marked For Disposal" card referencing OS 755/20. The new box gives you the top half of the transaction record and the bottom half of the photo (which are then supposed to point you to Paul Helliwell).

From memory, there are also some weaker clues pointing you towards Southeast Asia - 1977 - Hand (which will also get you to OS 449/13). But the OS 615/53 document is the main route (and in hindsight, it seems a lot less obvious than when I first designed it...)

Thank you for the answer! That makes sense, and involves less guesswork than what I did. I guess what I was missing is that I just didn't really take in the "last year" part, so the year 1977 wasn't really on my mind at all. Instead, I just happened to pin the "PH" payment slip, the "Paul" meeting message and the World Marine operational review right next to eachothers and used those to inform a lucky guess. And then the drawer had a Helliwell card, and the card pointed to a box, and well.

Side note, that second "marked for disposal" card didn't appear on the desk when I entered exploration mode. I don't know if that's intentional, so I'm pointing it out in case it's a bug. I mean, it isn't exactly important information once you've found the box it points to, but the first "marked for disposal" card, which I'd pinned to the board, didn't disappear so it feels a bit strange.

[colestia3]

Ah, I can see how you put those clues together! If I ever get round to making a sequel I'll definitely try to consciously include some puzzles like that. Even just as a side-puzzle, I feel like that'd be a great way to reward some more lateral thinking.

And the other Marked For Disposal card wouldn't have shown up in the explore mode because they're the only file which slightly cheats the internal consistency of the archive. In playtesting I found that a small but significant number of players got stuck on the second-to-last set of boxes. So the Marked For Disposal cards can jump around a bit to make sure players don't get stuck when they're only one box away from the end.

[A Hoonter of Hoonters]

I had the same sequence happen, so thank you for the thread! For me, I started combing chronologically once I got the Air America box, those same initials, and a continent. Finding "more leads" turned out to find the end of the game, lol.

[kenny]

Ok so I am not the only one who found the ending "early". :)

The whole story was clear from the headlines and I knew a location was visited at a certain year.
There were two missing characters by first name and last name and an unknown person in the group photo. So I decided to visit the drawer for the location/year and look for the last name. Unfortunately that triggered the ending and I was expecting to find out at least who all the three men are. Fortunately, the exploration mode revealed info I had not found but I was definitely ready for more game-play.

If there will be a sequel I hope the news clippings don't reveal as much and that the characters are fleshed out a bit more in the dossiers. For example, if the characters have some known habits traits/show personal letters revealing them.