Misslead: Ria (Season 1)

With the nation's literacy rates dwindling, the knee-jerk press is forever looking for a ready scapegoat to righteously offload responsibility and guilt onto, with a sneer and pointed finger. Often that scapegoat is gaming but if there were more titles like Misslead: Ria on shop shelves and mobile portals, perhaps the press would be less inclined to ladle such ill-reasoned blame.

Why is this? Because it's a read-'em up and everyone knows it's scientifically impossible for a book to taint an impressionable mind (snort).

Essentially a text adventure but rather than one involving a story about David the muscle ripped warrior who loves hanging out in dungeons and can't stomach those pesky orcs, Misslead: Ria takes shape as a melodramatic modern day tale about the tumultuous goings on of Ria and her woe-riddled family.

The somewhat gritty plot follows the hospitalisation of Ria's brother Marco and the revelation that her real father is a jewellery mogul from Chicago and not a jailbird as she previously thought. The action is largely set in Brazil and all manner of colloquialisms and cultural references are peppered throughout; expect to see the word caramba (a Portuguese expression of surprise or dismay) often.

The dialogue flows according to a pretty clever mood system where you need to earn the right to make certain friendly or antagonistic replies. Each time you interact with someone, there are stock replies that can be selected, ranging from rude to helpful, tangential and direct.

There's also a gauge at the bottom of the screen containing an angel and a devil representing kind and mean. Depending on where you are on the narrative tree, you're rewarded with a quarter piece of either an angel or devil face for each reply you make. Once you have collected four pieces, the angel or devil icon is stored in a bank where you keep a stock of each. Some of the available responses require you to spend an angel or a devil in order to make that reply, with the incentive that the priced replies are usually much more direct or fecund with potential to drive the narrative forward.

It is a very elegant system and though at times you need to repeat certain conversations in order to build enough angel or devil icons to progress, the game seldom feels repetitive and the script is engaging enough to keep you reading and interested in what lies around the corner.

The game is also very well presented and though it won't be winning any prizes for animation, it serves up the meat of the package - the story - with style and aplomb.

The story itself is not for the younger reader though. There are sex and drug references throughout as well as descriptions of violence and other adult themes like prison, prostitution and death. Even so, the narrative is handled with maturity and never succumbs to titillation or gaudiness despite the occasional groansome stereotype.

Perhaps more interestingly, Misslead is being presented as a series with the first season containing four episodes each focused on a different character - of which Ria is one.

Given its bite-size nature, mobile gaming is uniquely suited to this format and if developer 3rd Person can sustain the level of intrigue there's no reason why subsequent episodes should be any less entertaining than this thoroughly enjoyable romp.