Murder mysteries?

[Warpmind]

Just had a thought...
I recently purchased Noir Syndrome, and it got me thinking.
From Detective Game for the C64, with its evidence gathering, through Clue (the board game) with its evidence gathering and randomization feature, to more recent games like Noir syndrome with procedurally generated plots, I have to wonder how complex a murder mystery, with how many murderer/murder weapon permutations one could manage to make in RPG Maker?
I mean, with just a few variables (say, for murder weapon, motive and murderer) you could probably easily work out hundreds of possible variations; all you'd need would be, well, the patience to write the different possible event branches for dialogue and evidence relevance...

Any thoughts on the idea?

 

[The Prince of Sarcasm]

Like a giant rpg maker clue game? That would be awesome, me I love clue. Though it would be a huge undertaking, for all the necessary conditional branches, dialogue, and variables. I think that you would tire of it after a long while and only have one event done.

 

[Warpmind]

While I agree with your statements there, I just can't tell if you're sincere or snarky.
But yeah, it WOULD be a huge undertaking. Most likely, one'd be able to get most of the dialogue written in advance, and keep a cheerful assortment of dialogues applicable for multiple possibilities. And then, after one or two events with its permutations, get bogged down with exhaustion.

 

[The Prince of Sarcasm]

Don't worry, I'm being sincerely snarky.

 

[Alkorri]

Out of curiosity, Warpmind, have you played Happy Birthday? I liked how your character had to pick various choices to proceed with the game, as it were.

 

[Warpmind]

Hm, no, never tried that one. Might have to add it to The List...

 

[The Prince of Sarcasm]

i liked it until the ------- sorry i won't spoil anything.

 

[Warpmind]

Hm. Happy Birthday was... not bad. Not bad at all.
A bit more linear, it seems, than what I had in mind, but still, not bad at all...

 

[Alkorri]

The important thing was to learn what works in the game and how the techniques can apply to your own project

 

[Knightmare]

I like a good mystery game and would like to see a lot more on RPG Maker.  I actually had an idea for one on the backburner that I may end up starting at some point.  Would definitely play if one was available. 

But yeah you'll have to make a ton of dialogue and have a way to explain everything.  It would probably be very dialogue heavy so unless you're a very good story writer I would start with something small so you don't exhaust dialogue options.  Not to mention you'll need to expand on backgrounds of all the characters also. 

 

[Warpmind]

Actually, the "ton of dialogue" isn't necessarily so extensive - eye-abusing walls of text would likely detract heavily from replay value, which would kind of be one of the main things with such a game. But, yes, being a good (or at least, decent) writer would be vital, not just for the dialogue, but for sorting the stories in a consistent manner and avoiding severe flaws in logic.

...It occurs to me that one mechanic that could work well would be to create equipment items from statements and items of evidence, and perhaps something along the lines of five to ten "Evidence" equipment slots, replacing the usual equipment. When you have filled all the Evidence slots correctly (and some of the evidence might be too weak on their own, necessitating combining evidence to make a stronger piece, such as two or three conflicting statements, or a statement conflicting with the murder weapon, perhaps), you are able to solve the case.

Hmmm, the mechanics COULD work, with a miniscule bit of scripting and a few metric craptons of eventing and database revisions... A load of work, but it could be done.

 

[SoulPour777]

Actually, I have been working with how I can create the classic Clue Board game on RMVXAce, and sadly I have to implement zChaff and a bit of a hard algorithm to check the cards and which of the room, suspect and murder weapon is correctly placed as the correct answer. You'd have to use an algorithm to check that.

 

[CrazyCrab]

I'm working on a mystery game right now, but I decided to go with pre-made cases, simply because I don't think that I have the skill necessary to make randomized ones engaging.

At the same time it's a semi open world game, so I'm trying to give every NPC something to say about your current case, even if they are wrong or lying... Like you said, even with my pre-made mysteries, it's a lot of writing and eventing.

 

[Meoix]

Personally I agree walls of text are distracting.
I like games like Gone Home or Myst.

Less text and large emphasis on the environment.

Perhaps include a new skill called deduction which can be used alongside luck to give extra clues.
These clues could be such that you can tell if someone is lying or if something interesting is nearby, it wouldn't be too difficult to implement.

As for the original question, a little while ago made a rough quest generator via simple scripting and used alongside Modern_A's Journal script.
So it may be possible to do something similar with a murder investigation. The system would be several times more complex.

Generating types of investigation would be the real keystone in the generation. Generating victim, NPCs, clue and evidence locations and amount.
Generating NPC personalities each would have predefined dialogue trees depending on relation to the investigation, this is what would take the longest probably).
Most important thing is having a good organized way to access your variable database which will hold everything. Probably best to write your own full script and make your own database.
 

 

[Acetonide]

Theoretically, you wouldn't have to write a lot of dialogue to go with it if you use the basic idea of text substitution. 

You would just need to sort how objects into categories, and to ensure good grammar and that it's logical. (like if the potential murder weapons were 'a lead pipe', 'a car', 'a knife', and 'poison' the sentences used for those would different, and there for you should categorize them separately. For example a lead pipe goes into blunt weapons, a car would go into a larger weapon category, and so forth. Ideally you'd get a script that can let you add custom tags to items, and would create a list of tags for all your items so after randomly picking a weapon and a murder victim it can leave reasonable clues.

The problem is keeping it engaging, and the possibility of having a repeat of a case.

The repeating issue isn't a big problem I guess... You can make the randomization engine track what combinations have been set up before, and occasionally you can repeat if the crime is big enough and it can be a "copycat" or some such.

As I said, with randomization from a large pool of variables the problem is keeping it engaging, and ensuring it all works together..

Note: I kept bringing up murder since you said murder mystery, but I can't help but point out... What kind of town are you living in if there are that many murders so often, and why has everyone not moved out yet? It may work better if it was crimes in general, although then you'd have to categorize crimes too.

 

[Warpmind]

Mostly, it was because I was looking at the board game Clue, and the video game Noir Syndrome as primary inspirations; set locations, finding clues, picking suspects - it wouldn't necessarily be the concept of *multiple* murders, so much as numerous different versions of the murder investigation.
You know, "Mr. Boddy was murdered, but who did it, where was he murdered and who killed him? Ms. Scarlet in the Library with the Candlestick? Colonel Mustard in the Kitchen with the Gun?" Etc.

 

[SoulPour777]

But how would you go randomizing the suspect, the weapon and the place in every occasion? Remember that you need also to have the other players determine their card, so you'd have to put the correct items into a certain singular place, but then that's a random value...which is impossible by eventing alone.

 

[Warpmind]

Well, I wouldn't have a multiplayer element, nor would the concept of "cards" be appliccable. Just a few variables for weapon, murderer and such - easily managed (if requiring rather a lot of typing) through events.

 

[whitesphere]

But how would you go randomizing the suspect, the weapon and the place in every occasion? Remember that you need also to have the other players determine their card, so you'd have to put the correct items into a certain singular place, but then that's a random value...which is impossible by eventing alone.

You can, actually.  The "Control Variables" selection on the first page allows you to set (or add, subtract, multiply, divide or mod) a random number, in a user specified range, to a variable.

So you could have, say, "Murder Weapon" be set to a random value from 1 to 5 with 1 being Knife, 2 being Gun, etc.

Personally, if I wanted to create such a game, I'd use scripting instead of a slew of events, because I can test the scripts out separately.

 

[SoulPour777]

 

You can, actually.  The "Control Variables" selection on the first page allows you to set (or add, subtract, multiply, divide or mod) a random number, in a user specified range, to a variable.

So you could have, say, "Murder Weapon" be set to a random value from 1 to 5 with 1 being Knife, 2 being Gun, etc.

Personally, if I wanted to create such a game, I'd use scripting instead of a slew of events, because I can test the scripts out separately.

But then again, it would be impossible to determine the true cards. I'll give an example, say for example in the start of the game, there are 6 suspects (Scarlet, Mustard, White, Green, Peacock, Plum), 6 Murder Weapons (Candlestick, Dagger, Pipe, Revolver, Rope and Wrench), and 9 Rooms (Kitchen, Ballroom, Conservatory, Billiard Room, Library, Dining Room, Lounge, Hall and Study).

So, if the player plays the game and the randomized values for the true answers are: Green, Dagger, and Kitchen.

So, the remaining cards would be distributed to all of you (or in a manner of different mechanics, say for example the character has to discover the other clues, instead of cards, as the OP mentioned). Now, there is no way AFAIK to determine in pure events if green, dagger and kitchen are the true answers in events, because you'd have to set every clues to true in order to determine Suggestions and Accusations (if this was a game of clue).