Originally Posted July 13th 2014 on the Seafoam Gaming Forums

Yes, I was to review another game soon, but I felt I had to write a review of this game anyway. I don’t know what to really say, but I feel it must be said that The Letter is an example of crowdfunding gone wrong. Considering this released on a week where the ONLY other release on Wii U was NES Baseball game BASES LOADED, however I think the developer got very lucky with timing…

Title: The Letter

System: Wii U (eShop)

Price: 1.99

Release date: 7/10/2014

The main game/story

This game seems to have a good story going for it. Your father has mysteriously vanished, and you head to the construction zone to investigate. You basically explore and find clues.

Graphics

They look for the most part, OK to awful. Some things look well designed and simple, like the grass and the beach, but most backgrounds are dark and bland, and the items you are supposed to search for just plain awful to look at (The knife doesn’t even look like a knife!). It’s nice to see so many hidden details though, and it’s it’s interesting to wonder why there are SO MANY empty spaces in the game.

Music and sound effects:

Music is mostly ear-piercing and awful, but Level 2 and the final screen of the game have very good songs. Sound effects “work” but they are as basic as can get.

Gameplay

So as stated before you find clues about the disappearance of your father. Seems simple, you move around in a first person view, and then use your flashlight to look around, Pick up clues with A, and that’s it.

No, that’s the game. It has so much potential to be a good addition to the eShop, but considering it didn’t even get CLOSE to the goal of 5,000 on IndieGoGo, this shows the consequence of a failed crowdfunding. There are so many nice easter eggs, which are fun to find, but considering how it feels like a beta at best, it makes me, and others out there wonder about how this game was approved by NOA in it’s current form. the game can be beaten in 3 minutes if you go completely fast, which is terrible for a game like this. There’s no save feature, but at least it’s short to make up for it.

Conclusion

In the end, the Letter debuts on the Wii U eShop and it’s not that great. However, the Developer has promised to fix these problems via update, and I truly believe this has the potential to be a good game when it’s updated. Even though it’s cheap, don’t buy it unless either it’s updated or if you want to support the developer. Blok Drop U for example was lackluster at launch, but a very fun and addicting game after the update. The second game the developer made, POKER DICE SOLITAIRE FUTURE ended up becoming an amazing steal, so it’s proof there is a road to recover for Treefall games.

So from the bottom of my heart, I wish Treefall Studios luck with their future games, and I hope Gem Collector becomes the fun and enjoyable second game to their wii u eshop arsenal. But in it’s current form, I rate the Letter a 3 out of 10

Thanks to Treefall Studio for the review code.