Mystic Messenger

Plot

In Mystic Messenger, the player takes the role of a female character whose name can be changed and has no default one. The female main character, who is often referred to as MC, heroine, or simply protagonist, downloaded a mysterious app that leads her into living in a closed, secured apartment owned by someone named Rika, who is also the founder of a charity organization known as the RFA (Rika's Fundraising Association). There, she meets 6 new people and a cat (the remaining members of the RFA) and is tasked to organize the third party that the RFA members have been longing for, by inviting guests. The protagonist is able to choose one out of 5 available love interests (though that doesn't stop them from loving their blueberry), each with their own route and backgrounds, as well as digging out the truth behind the RFA.

Gameplay

The game is divided into several parts:

1. Original story: This is where you progress the game. You can select a game mode of either Casual Story or Deep Story. In Casual Story you can only get the routes for Zen, Yoosung, or Jaehee, while in Deep Story you can only get 707 or Jumin route. Under Original Story are:
   1. Chatroom: This is where the main conversation happens and where all of the player's choice affect the storyline. Some days and routes have a visual novel mode, where the story is told in either first or third view perspective in visual novel style.
   2. Text messages: Takes the shape of a real text messaging system. It is just an extra that doesn't really affect the storyline but the player can gain hearts, heartbreaks, or nothing, depending on what choices they make for the reply. The player can answer the texts sent by any of the RFA members only to a limit set by the game.
   3. Phone calls: Players are able to receive an incoming call from one of the 5 characters after some chatrooms or visual novels. The phone will ring for 10 seconds. If the player doesn't pick up during the time limit, the phone call will remain as a missed call and the player is able to call them back after the next chatroom is available, most of the incoming calls. Players are also able to make an outgoing call to one of them in a specific time. They will either pick up or entering a voicemail when they're busy.
   4. Emails: To invite guests into party, the player needs to invite as many guests as possible. To have them attending the party, the player needs to answer their questions correctly. Answering 3 right questions will guarantee them to come.
   5. Gallery to see obtained event CGs.
   6. Status: You can see the profile pictures and status of each five characters. It changes for some time.
   7. Settings. This is where you can change the settings of the game. You can change your name and profile picture that is shown in the chatroom. You can also save or load a save slot, but loading will cost 5 HG. You can change the sound settings, ringtones, account info, etc.
2. Load: This is where you can load, unlock, or delete a save slot.
3. After Ending: This is a story for each character routes that happens after the good ending. There is also the Valentines After ending, which costs 20 hourglasses. There is also a Christmas after ending once you complete a route in the Christmas DLC.
4. Extra: This is where you can view the Album, Guests, and Phone and Chat History. You can unlock it permanently by finishing an ending for the first time.
5. Special. It is a side story from the Original Story that is added in December.

The story in the game lasts for 11 days per route. The first day concerns the game's prologue, three days for the "common route", six days focusing on a route of a character, and one day for a party. The game plays in real time, where players can receive text messages and join group chats in a special messenger (which takes its place in the game). Throughout conversations in the first four days, the player can give favorable responses to certain characters to increase your likability with them (the likability is symbolized as Hearts; just like its name, takes on the form of heart-shaped objects). By the end of the fourth day, the player will encounter a Caution. It branches the game and the player will either get a route or a bad ending depending on the player's accumulated hearts and chatroom participation for four days. During the route, the story has three Cautions in different days. Like the fourth day Caution, the player will either progress the story or get a bad ending, depending on the player's choices and chatroom participation.

Every route has one good ending, one normal ending, three bad story endings, and 2 bad relationship endings. Although there is a Prologue bad ending that happens in the prologue, Casual and Deep Story bad endings, which happens after caution on day 4. To achieve a good ending, the player must first acquire a route, surpass all cautions, and have atleast 10 guests who will attend the party. To obtain normal ending is similar on how to get good ending, the difference is that the player must have 9 or less guests who will attend the party. To obtain bad story ending you must choose choices that will trigger the bad ending. Most options to get the ending are being a pessimist or being mean to the characters. To get bad relationship ending, the player can obtain by not reaching enough likability with your love interest after a certain amount of time by missing most or all chatrooms. An after ending for each character can be unlocked permanently by getting their good ending and consume 20 HG. 707's good ending will also unlock access to the "secret ending", which unfold more secrets behind the RFA and Mint Eye.

There is an in-game currency known as Hourglasses. They allow the player to gain access to chats that the player missed in the past, load a saved file, unlocking after and secret endings, unlock a save slot, unlock Specials, make outgoing calls or call back missed calls. These can be gained randomly in the chatrooms, by purchasing with real money, exchanging 100 Hearts for one hourglass, every new update (usually 10 free Hourglasses are given), and by reading the story for each unlocked guests for the first time. Heart is another in-game currency in which you can convert 100 of hearts into 1 Hourglass. Player can acquire hearts by choosing options in the chatroom and in messages (although they sometimes don't give something or give heartbreaks), or tapping the Honey Buddha Chips icon when the spaceship gauge is full, which located below the menu under Original Story.

In December 2016, Cheritz added a new "special content" section to the game. These content contains side stories and can be bought for 100 Hourglasses each. The DLC contains new chatrooms, messages, and phone calls within 2 days and has 8 endings, new ringtones, and 3 new background music. The Christmas episode was added on December 19, 2016 and remains available even after Christmas.. The April's Fools episode was added on March 21, 2017.

In early February 2017, Cheritz added 5 Valentine's after endings, which can be unlocked for 20 hourglasses each.

Characters

The following Korean romanization follows the official romanization from the game itself; it may be different from the usual pronunciation.

Main characters

Protagonist

The player takes the role of her and gives her a name and a custom avatar. She has no default name, cannot be unnamed, and cannot be named using too many characters; the game will crash if so. After being suddenly becomes a member of RFA and lives Rika's apartment, she takes Rika's role and organizes the party that RFA's members had been longing for. When voiced, other characters will refer her as "you" in various forms of Korean.As the playable character, the protagonist has no fixed background - the player is able to choose any option referring to her background when asked, without affecting the storyline. Her default avatar comes in 5 various appearances, but she appears to have brown, long silky hair if shown in the CGs and is drawn with her eyes hidden.

Jumin Han

Voiced by: Yongwoo ShinJumin Han (한주민, Han Ju-min) is a 27-year-old heir of C&R International, a company owned by his father. He's always on a business trip, likes to wear a tuxedo, and is not used to 'commoner' food. Jumin is actually a cat lover - claiming that only cats understand as well as are loyal to him. He owns a Persian cat named Elizabeth the 3rd and hates when someone else nicknames her - especially 707. Due to his very privileged upbringing, Jumin has a very different perspective on the world, which often brings him into direct conflict with Zen. Regardless, he doesn't particularly seems to care what others think about him but does not hesitate to use his authority to help RFA members when one of them is in trouble. He also has a best friend named V since they were still children.

Zen

Voiced by: Jang KimZen (stylized as ZEN) is the stage name of Hyun Ryu (류현, Lyu Hyeon), a 23-year-old musical stage artist. He has pale skin and white-ish colored hair; implying that he's an albino. Despite being a narcissist due to his handsome face (to the point that he would take selfies and share them in the messenger, exclaiming how handsome he is), he wants people to acknowledge him for his skills instead. He is seemed to be oversensitive towards Jumin, nicknaming him "Mr. Trust Fund Kid" and refuses any help from him because he reminds him of his brother. Zen is also very protective of the other members, especially the protagonist, and always warned her to be wary of the guys and their 'wolf attitude'.Zen is the youngest son in his family - consisting of a father, mother, and an older brother. Being a conservative family, his parents wanted their sons to have a stable job instead of music related ones. Due to his good-looking face since young days, his parents were afraid that Zen would become an artist instead of a lawyer or doctor, so they always said that Zen is ugly and only his brother defended him. After finding out that his brother 'betrayed' him, he ran away from his home and began to live alone. This leads him to hate people who 'have privilege since early years', like Jumin. Zen joined RFA after Rika invited him, who was one the early fans of him.

707

Voiced by: Youngsun Kim707, or his real name Luciel Choi (최 루시엘, Choi Lusiel) is a 21-year-old genius hacker and a secret agent, he is also the one who made the RFA Messenger. 707, or also referred to as Seven, is a self-proclaimed devoted Catholic who loves to eat junk food (especially Ph.D. Pepper and Honey Buddha Chips). He has a very mischievous attitude and loves cats in a 'unique' way. He tends to talk in a very strange way that no other member can understand except the protagonist. His hobbies include collecting sports cars. His house is so secured that people need to bring an Arabic dictionary to pass the security. Despite his carefree, easy-going personality, he always warns the other members to "keep their distance" from him because of his job as a secret agent. When he's genuinely in love with the protagonist, he intentionally hurts her feelings so that she won't suffer when he's suddenly gone (due to his dangerous job). 707 tends to break the 4th wall more than anyone in the game.707, whose birth name is Saeyoung Choi (최세영, Choi Se-yeoung), grew up with his younger twin brother, Saeran, in a toxic household. They're illegal children whose father was a candidate for a presidential election at that time. This caused their mother to be driven into depression - she asked him for money in exchange of the information of the twins being kept, only to lock them up in the house. Being the healthier one, young Saeyoung is tasked to do some errands. In his way to home, he met various people at a Catholic church as well as Rika who later made him turn into a Catholic, gaining his baptismal name - Luciel. At the age of 15, Saeyoung was promised by V a better life for his brother in exchange for him working as a hacker and thus stopped 'having a family', unaware of actually what happened much later.

Yoosung

Voiced by: Kyuhyuk SimYoosung Kim (김유성, Kim Yu-seong) is a 20-year-old college student and an addicted online gamer of a game called LOLOL (stands for League of Loneliness of Life), a parody of the MMORPG League of Legends, he is ranked 2 in the server, with 707 apparently beating him in the first rank. Due to his addiction, he doesn't have time for studying, despite being smart enough to get a scholarship at his school, SKY University, and get an internship offer from Jumin. Yoosung is also Rika's cousin; he is unable to move on after her death, whom he admired so much even though they only met when he was a 6th grader.Rika was Yoosung's biggest influence. She's also the reason in Yoosung taking a medical major. Rika's death was apparently hitting him so hard that only playing LOLOL could distract him from his sadness. Due to this, he also initially compared the protagonist with Rika so much to the point that he would see her as Rika's replacement.In Valentine's after ending, he appears to cut his hair, abandoned his hairpins, and wears the red-framed glasses that the protagonist gave him in the after ending and has a deeper voice.

Jaehee Kang

Voiced by: Jeonghwa YangJaehee Kang (강제희, Kang Je-hui) is currently the only female member of RFA besides the protagonist. She is a 25-year-old Chief Assistant at C&R International and Jumin's personal assistant. She initially appeared as stoic, serious, and appears to be suspicious of the protagonist's sudden appearance. Despite this, she's actually a big fan of Zen and her personality changes when she's talking about Zen. She tends to be overworked by Jumin and is forced to take care of Elizabeth 3rd, even though she hates it when cat hair is all over her house.Jaehee's mother married a man who was at least 20 years older than her and passed away quickly. Her mother passed away not long after that, forcing a relative to take care of young Jaehee despite their unwillingness. Because of that, Jaehee tends to not rely herself on other people and is also afraid that if she no longer works for C&R International, something bad will occur. In her route, she's taking an interest in coffee and wants to open her own coffee shop.

Minor Characters

V

Voiced by: Hosan LeeV or his real name Jihyun Kim (김지현, Kim Ji-hyeon) is a 26-year-old photographer and childhood friend of Jumin. He's also Rika's fiancee and another person who was driven into sadness after her death. He does not appear in the messenger often and wears a pair of sunglasses to hide his eyes since his eyesight has worsened. Rika, his ex-fiancee, scratched out V's eyes in a backlash to his love for her. V claims that she could do anything to hurt him and he would still love her with all his heart.

Rika

Voiced by: Hyunjin LeeRika (리카) is a person who is adored by RFA's members, the organization founded by her and V. When she was alive, she wanted to make everyone happy, with one method being a charity party. She apparently had a mental issue, especially after her dog Sally wound up dead due to her blindness. It is later found out that Rika is not dead, but instead founded Mint Eye, an organization - or can be called cult - that is after RFA. She attempts to steal party guests from the RFA to invite to her new organization. She claims that she wants the entire world to be happy, and wishes for them to come to "Paradise."

Unknown

Voiced by: Sujin KangUnknown (also referred as '???' in the visual novel mode) is a hacker who led the protagonist into Rika's apartment and a part of a mysterious cult called "Mint Eye". The player is able to get a bad end at the prologue chat if they refuse to help him or pretend not to see a security code at Rika's apartment. Appears to somehow holds a grudge towards 707, in 707's route he is revealed to be 707's twin brother, whose real name is Saeran Choi (최세란).

Vanderwood

Voiced by: Gyuchong LeeVanderwood (벤더우드) is another agent working in the same agency as Unknown, serves as someone who tasked to keep 707 working and to do that, he also cleans 707's house. He brings a taser gun and an Arabic dictionary due to 707's security gate. He initially introduced as 707's maid and is referred as "she" almost every time and in the earlier versions of the artbook.

Music

The game features two songs - the opening theme is sung by Han titled "Mysterious Messenger" and ending song sung by Han and Sirius titled "Like the Sun in the Sky". Both are composed by DoubleTO.

About 23 tracks of background music, composed by Flaming Heart, were released along with the opening and ending song and 13 tracks of free talk with people involved in the making via the game's special package.

Official merchandise

In June 2016, Cheritz opened a pre-order session for the game's limited edition special package called RFA VIP Package. The package contains original soundtracks from the game, 2 artbooks, characters' name card, and 2 DVDs of the freetalk session with the voice actors involved in the game. It also contains serial number to unlock the game's VIP membership, which enables player to fast forwarding a chatroom and 1000 Hourglasses.