The MISSING: J.J. Macfield and the Island of Memories

I went into The MISSING half-expecting another quirky Swery curiosity and came out the other side genuinely shaken. That reaction, I think, is exactly what director Hidetaka 'Swery' Suehiro was after. This is a 2D puzzle-platformer built around a mechanic that sounds gratuitous on paper: J.J. Macfield cannot die, and so the game hands you the tools to dismember, burn, and otherwise destroy her body in service of solving its puzzles. Cut off a limb to wedge a gear. Separate torso from legs to use both halves as counterweights on opposite platforms. Roll a severed head under a closing gate. What starts as morbid novelty becomes something else entirely once the storytelling catches up. The puzzle logic and the emotional subtext become inseparable, and that fusion is the game's single greatest achievement. The structure is a side-scrolling platformer in the tradition of Limbo or Inside, moving left to right through increasingly surreal island environments. Puzzle difficulty ramps steadily, and the solutions are rarely obvious on the first pass. A regeneration button lets you snap J.J. back together at will, which removes traditional lives-based tension but replaces it with something more uncomfortable: you feel reluctant to hurt her, even when you know she heals. A handful of chase sequences add timing pressure, though feedback during these moments is a little loose and they are the weakest section of the design. Collectible doughnuts scattered through each chapter unlock text messages between J.J., Emily, her mother, and college peers, and those messages are where the story actually lives. Told entirely through a LINE-style sticker messaging app, the backstory unfolds gradually and rewards players who go off the main path to find everything. The subject matter is serious and handled with a frankness that is rare in games. The MISSING deals with gender identity, self-harm, depression, and the particular cruelty of families and peer groups who refuse to accept someone for who they are. The game was nominated for 'Games for Impact' at The Game Awards 2018, and it earned that recognition. Community response has been genuinely split, not on quality but on personal resonance: players who share J.J.'s experiences describe the game as flooring them with its sincerity, while others find the self-harm imagery too visceral to sit with. Both reactions are valid, and the game front-loads a content warning for exactly this reason. On the criticism side, some commentators have raised concerns about narrative framing that links bodily self-destruction to identity affirmation, and that debate is legitimate. What is harder to argue is that Swery approached the material carelessly. On the pure mechanics side, the controls are functional rather than fluid. Movement can feel stiff, and a few puzzles have you wrestling with J.J.'s positioning rather than thinking through the solution. The runtime sits at six to seven hours for the main path, longer if you chase every collectible. That length feels right. The game knows when it has said what it needs to say, and it does not overstay. A post-clear unlockable mode with new J.J. dialogue adds a small reason to return after credits. The soundscape and art direction lean into high-contrast eeriness, with the island's surrealist imagery, a mysterious deer-headed doctor, and J.J.'s stuffed animal F.K. all contributing to an atmosphere that sits somewhere between Twin Peaks and a particularly bleak animated short. This is not a game for everyone, and it does not try to be. If body horror imagery or themes of self-harm are triggers for you, the warning is genuine and should be heeded. If you can engage with the material, you will find one of the most intentional, cohesive uses of a gameplay mechanic in service of a story that this medium has produced. Small, strange, and quietly devastating in the best way.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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