Recently, I played through "9 Clues: The Secret of Serpent Creek" and "9 Clues 2: The Ward." I loved the games so much that I wished there was a third. For some more info, they're murder mystery games that are available on Steam for about $10 each, but when they're on sale, you can get them for about $3. The games were developed by Tap It Games and published by Artifex Mundi. In the same way that the games use nine clues to solve the mysteries, here are are nine reasons why I recommend giving the "9 Clues" games a look.

1. Stories.

I've been reading, playing and watching lots of things that fall under the horror genre this summer, but my favorite subcategory of horror are murder mysteries, which these games are. I always love when the mystery has many pieces, so that you might get part but not the whole picture. In both of these games, I got to experience the joy of getting what you suspected confirmed and being totally caught off guard in the best way possible. In fact, I intend to replay both of the games soon in order to see how some of the clues that I had previously missed link to the solution, just as I always do with mysteries I love.

2. Characters

While some of the characters may seem to be flat when you first meet them, they all have more aspects to them that you piece together throughout the gameplay. Some people who seem harmless have a dark side that you learn about through notes hidden in an office. Conversely, one of the people that I thought was the sketchiest when I first met them ended up being my greatest ally. My favorite character is actually one of the characters that is most heavily in the grey area, not good or evil. He seemed suspicious, but I couldn't quite place him in the storyline for quite a while. I always wanted to learn more about him and that is the sign of a great character.

3. Settings.

The settings of the two games may seem to be typical locations for horror/mystery games, but they are handled so well and with such attention to detail that they feel completely unique. Both of the games take place in the 1950s, the second game a few years after the first one, so I thought it was a bold and interesting choice to make the two characters that the player inhabits be strong females.

The first game takes place in Serpent Creek, which is a creepy little town near New Orleans overrun with snakes. However, what sets this town apart from others is the amount of history that the player gets to learn about the town, from what happened to the previous mayor to the fascinating "ancient religion" that has ties to the present. The second game takes place in a rundown asylum on an island far from mainland, not abandoned but damaged from a fire. I appreciated that it still did have patients that would occasionally give you clues to mystery or help you in other ways. Although you get to explore some locations that weren't parts of the asylum, I always wanted to unlock the next wing or floor to find out what secrets they hid.

4. Music.

The music was one of the biggest elements that contributed to the atmosphere of the game. There were many times when I was nervous that something was going to attack my character from behind and knock her out, because of the music's intensity, even though I knew that that wasn't going to happen due to context.

However, the music was never distracting while I was trying to solve the puzzles, and instead got very intense at the right moments, which heightened the drama. Although certain bits of music were looped many times over the course of the game, especially due to how slowly I was playing, I liked them and found myself humming some of them to myself the next day.

5. Puzzles.

I found the puzzles to be the perfect mixture of easy and difficult, as the game's atmosphere was never destroyed due to struggling for too long and I always felt accomplished when I solved one. Although hints are available if you get stumped, I was very proud to have solved all of them without using any.

There are also different types of puzzles throughout the game, so the gameplay doesn't get stale. Although hidden object puzzles and inventory puzzles are used throughout the games, unlocking doors and turning off lasers could be done with logic puzzles.

6. Investigations.

I loved both the investigations across games, at large, but especially on the crime scenes. I'd never been so excited to find a scrap of newspaper or a haphazard diary entry as I was in this game, because it was the smallest pieces of information that got the gears in my head turning. Due to this being a murder mystery game, you get to investigate many locations where murders took place. I loved taking all of the seemingly random clues and putting them together to create the narrative, leading up to a case changing clue.

7. Notes.

I don't usually take a lot of notes when going through a mystery, but I took pages upon pages of notes while playing these games. Sometimes, I like to let the mystery unravel without too much over-analysis so that I can be surprised. These games got me so engaged that I wanted to be able to solve the mystery before I was told the answer. Even if you don't want to take notes yourself while playing, the game has its own way of taking notes in your characters' notebooks. Even though I didn't use that tool as much as other people might have, I was always excited to see another one of the titular "9 clues" added to the clues section, and that each answer the player got to their questions, another three were added.

8. Improvements.

The first game was a great starting point, but the second game improved upon many parts, which made it a sequel that I loved even more than the original. For example, sections of the first game that were handled mostly through cut scenes, became more hands-on for the player, making the experience more immersive. Also, the first game had some aspects of it that relied on the supernatural, but the second game is plausible as something that could have happened in real life, which I felt made the game scarier. Plus, the second game had more minor characters the player interacts with, allowing the world to feel even more fleshed out in comparison to the first.

9. Lack of jump scares.

Many recent horror games rely heavily on jump scares, and while I don't mind jump scares being in a game, I grow bored if that's the only way the game creates dread and tension in its players. There are only a few occasions where jump scares were used in both of the games, but the ominous settings and eerie music create these feelings instead. The dread and tension also come from the death around you, the notes the killers leave you and the race to save yourself and your friends. The few jump scares that are in the game are used well to maximize on the scenes that are already high tension due to other reasons, justifying their use.