Bowlers are meh; fedoras are sex incarnate. I wish men still wore them.
As far as randomizing a culprit, I’d assign a number to each suspect and roll the dice at the beginning of each game. The implementation itself would depend on how different the versions are. If they’re pretty similar, I’d just tweak one main narrative, showing and hiding text depending on the number rolled. If the versions differed enough to become different stories altogether, I’d have created a different string of scenes for each (with a heavy dose of copy-paste). Granted, I’ve only ever done coding for other games, not CS - but that’s my intuition.
Moonmist did it through a choice right at the start. I think it was a “what is your favourite colour” or something. This meant you were going in completely blind in the first playthrough as to who the killer was, but on subsequent playthroughs you could actually choose to explore murder-mysteries which you hadn’t previously.
I find that way at least ensures that the player can explore all of the various options and they won’t end up with the same playthrough several times in a row. Or if they want to replay a version they enjoyed it’s easier to pick.
If not doing that then I’d suggest at the end of each different playthrough including a one word password. So if Bob the Butler did it by poisoning the burnt-butter sauce, for instance just have butter as the password. And let players input the various passwords to prevent them from repeating any path they’ve played. I’d suggest that over a selectable list because lists can include spoilers.
That’s a decent point. I like the colors idea the most; it seems elegant.
You could have the best of both worlds by allowing them to choose rainbow, white, or input their own colour, and have that option completely randomise the roll so they can play the game and be surprised by what path they’re on.
I know you’ve decided on a type of story to write, but I just wanted to say that your 3rd option seemed interesting. A game show concept would be fun.
@Gran_Sleep Since I can speak about it now the game’s been released, Slammed! has a gameshow segment in it. While it’s not the focus of the whole game, it is a part of it. I won’t say anything more since that would constitute spoilers.
@kakistocracy Slammed! is one of the reasons I suggested against the gameshow format. Although I do think that a game based on a gameshow would be fantastic. I had this blurb for what I wanted to do:
“The Fame Game! is the hottest tv show on television, watched by the world and known for catapaulting its winner into mega-stardom. It’s a show similar to American Idol, The X-Factor, The Voice, Fame Academy, and Any Dream Will Do (and the other Anthony Lloyd Webber BBC shows.) Week by week you must fight it out against the other contestants, while trying to work out if it’s all actually worth it. I’d want the theme of fame vs integrity to run high, with a lot of moral dilemmas and the personal cost this sort of shows can have, and with most of the other contestants harbouring secrets you can discover and possibly exploit.”
I wanted ridiculous scenarios, like those thrown at contestants on cooking shows. Like one week having to do your performance while dodging objects thrown at you by an audience. Another having to run across the city, with absolutely no money, grabbing items for your outfit as well as to put on the best performance you possibly could. Where you’d be asked to sell out and sing cover songs by artists you hated, or to fake being in a relationship, or you could even act as the villain and be the person everyone loved to hate. Or be the novelty act, either oblivious to the fact everyone was laughing at you, or dying a bit inside that you were forced to twist your music into making people laugh, or just happy that you were famous and it was worth the cost.
However in my list of projects it’s right down at the bottom and that’s one I wouldn’t tackle without a co-writer.
Ooh, I see! There are a lot of ways to tackle gameshows though, and Slammed featured it in a very specific way. If you do end up fleshing out that premise, I’ll be the first to give it a whirl!
In other news, I’m just about finished with the film noir prologue, which is mainly character creation / a skirmish with the law / brief introduction with the world. Do you guys think it’s premature to enable a test run? I’m a sucker for feedback, but the first mystery ain’t til chapter 1, haha.
If you can resist the urge hold onto it until you’ve written the first chapter. There’s not much useful feedback that can be given on what’s just character generation and you’ll get more useful feedback if you have it in context with the first mystery.
It’s not only character generation, per se - more of a long narrative exercise. But I see your point!
Big fan of noir here. I’d disagree… plenty of feedback can be given on tone, pacing, startup mechanics. And okay, maybe I just want to see what you have really bad too. 
@sesquipedalian I’m going to say, doesn’t matter. When you’ve not actually gotten into the meat of the game, seen how it’s played, you don’t really have context for how the chargen and narrative stuff ties into it. I think providing feedback on that bit has the risk of getting the author stuck on rewriting it instead of just pushing on. There’s very little that can be done constructively. It’s better to provide the feedback on larger chunks.
Nah, context is important but it ain’t the end all. Writing can be judged for writing’s sake. If what I’m doing is genuinely terrible to the point of not being feasible, I’d rather know ahead of time than slave away writing a whole chapter… for nothing. On the other hand, a few “hey, this seems promising, why don’t you keep going!” comments can be a good push to keep the author going. And I think that’s not only constructive, it’s important. I’m not talking psychoanalyzing every little syntax, which I’m inferring is your POV, just some generic yes or no’s.
I get where you’re coming from but I wouldn’t be so black and white as to categorically say “it doesn’t matter”.
GAME SHOW
Is there any benefit to doing that now, as opposed to when several chapters are written? Don’t you get the same effect but with a little more information and context to go on?
Not necessarily. Reiteration from my post up there:
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Saves you from hours of writing a chapter if your technical and writing prowess just isn’t up to snuff either way. Like if I’m building a boat out of solid gold, I’d rather you tell me immediately it won’t work rather than wait until I’ve accumulated all the resources and built it up. It’s kind of a cynical outlook, but we all know there are some stories out there that just won’t work. Why make them go a chapter writing it if you can save them the trouble at the prologue? TV commercials go through the same process. You don’t begin production without first giving a teaser and obtaining the green light.
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Gives enough encouragement to authors so that there will BE a first chapter or chapters to be written. One of the most prolific writers out there, Stephen King, once said of writers: given a rowboat, most would rather ship their oars and dream. Let’s face it, most authors, myself included, are lazy. But some minor encouragement goes a heck of a long way. Again, I’m not talking about long arduous feedback, the kind that you say would plunge the writer into an eternal cycle of editing. I’m talking about “yeah, I like this, keep going!” It makes a difference.
Just my opinion though
Hey, thanks for the input! I’m going to compromise and stick a short introductory mystery into the prologue. Best of both worlds, etc.