Encoded War

In this historical game, you’ll be playing a morse code messenger during World War II. Your ability to send and receive messages is vital to getting your son back safely. As Encoded War progresses, the story gives you new wrinkles to figure out, challenging your skills.

The game tests your ability to be a morse code messenger, which includes not just being able to write in morse, but coding it in such a way that the enemy does not understand what is being said. This can get extremely complicated as time goes on.

To keep you entertained as you are solving puzzles and working for the military, your own personal story unfolds. It turns out a German officer knows the whereabouts of your son, and simply arriving to pick him up isn’t good enough. You must work translating codes for 5 years to get him back---if he’s still alive.

As the story unfolds you’ll get a revealing look at the day to day life of World War II, including some less savory aspects of the game. Originally, this included some racist remarks from the main character, but the developers listened to the protests of players and changed it.

Cute Pixel Artwork

The game uses pixel style artwork. The artwork is nothing amazing, but it gets the job done and has a simple but cute outlook. If you are hoping for a game that will visually take your breath away, this isn’t it. Despite how simple the artwork is, it does do the job and feels like it matches the rest of the game.

Very similar to Papers Please

When playing this game, it’s hard not to notice the similarities between this one and Papers Please. The difference is instead of looking at immigration papers and checking for flaws against an ever-growing list of rules, it’s secret messages instead.

The games even share similar artwork, as well as the similar gameplay. If you’ve played Papers, Please and liked it, you’ll probably like Encoded War.

Endless Gameplay Mode

After you’ve played through story mode, the game also offers an endless mode that allows you to keep playing even after you’ve finished the story. The endless mode isn’t quite as entertaining as the story mode, but it does offer something in the way of play value after finishing the game.

Very Limited Menu

The game doesn’t give you a huge number of options to work with when playing the game. You can play, exit, look at the credits, or view some very simple settings.

If you enjoy puzzles similar to Papers, Please, you may like this game. It offers an engaging story and ever more complicate puzzles to keep you busy. It doesn’t have the greatest graphics or a whole lot of options to change up the gameplay, but what is there is fairly good.

Pros:

• Engaging Puzzles
• Interesting story

Cons:

• Very simple graphics
• Not many options