I’ve been thinking of doing a two minute mysteries game, where the player has the chance to solve a series of short (200-300 word) mysteries. There are several mystery books which follow this “solve it yourself” format. Here’s a demo of what a game in this style might look like.
B. How many mysteries would you expect the final game to have? Since the mysteries are short, I’m thinking either 40 or 50.
C. Does it work to have an index of clues, in the stats screen? Or should the stats screen just be the first three lines, which keep track of mysteries solved and incorrect guesses made?
Hey umm for the first mystery, I answered “Science major” and it was supposed to be correct however the answer was “science major”.
So I think for every question, multiple answers are needed since the only answer in the mystery was “science major” rather than “Science major”
Other wise:
A.) it’s worth it as it is the first of its kind in HG if I’m correct.
B.) Perhaps 50 instead
C.) I prefer index of clues so as its easier but you can try to add both of them.
This seems like an awesome idea! I loved these kinds of riddle books when I was a kid (even though half of them were total BS). I’d enjoy 50, but really just do as many as you can that are interesting and don’t rely on stupid answers.
I honestly love the concept, I love a good mystery to sink my teeth into and would really take them in any form. I’m wondering how far you’re planning to take the idea, though? Because I think that there are some really cool places you could go with it if you wanted to go beyond simply having a list of scenarios or mysteries to solve.
Are you thinking of having a persistent MC that is present for all the mysteries or will they just be random MCs, involving different kinds of people (so far they all seem to be a college protags)? Because you could have a fun little setting like a “college detective” or something, solving mysteries for the student body. Maybe solving mysteries earns you “prestige” or “credability” which is used to unlock even tougher mysteries for people with higher social status or whatever! Or you could have an old style adventure game where you and your college friends are exploring an old mansion and strange mysteries just pop up out of nowhere that you need to solve for absolutely no reason beyond wanting to solve mysteries!
Of course, I don’t know if you want to go that far and I would just love a book of mysteries if that’s what you want to go for. I think having an index of clues is a good idea, that way it doesn’t preclude you from having a couple of multi-page mysteries here and there if you feel inspired.
Heck, you could even have one or two meta mysteries that have their clues hidden in the other mysteries for the true diehard fans! Or you could tell a series of character stories throughout the mysteries, with some of them being continuations of others. I mean, I’m kind of curious why Cheryl was lying in the first place. That could be a whole character arc right there.
Sorry, I got a little carried away, I just love riddle books, and I feel like this is a really great idea that we haven’t seen yet and could really go places! I’d be up for anything, as long as I get to solve some brain teasers!
I think this is worth pursuing and 40 or 50 mysteries seems like a good number to me. I don’t know what a clues index would look like though. When we get wrong answers we go back to the scene and can re-read it so I don’t think it’s necessary.
This is a fun idea! It reminds me of Professor Layton. I agree with @Revache that having a persistent MC that unites all these mysteries could be a good idea.
I think another fun thing you can do is see how many times the player uses the “see answer” button, or use the incorrect guesses stat you already have in place, and give or take points so at the end the player can see how well they did with a grade system or something.
Also, it seems like when you input the wrong answer it will skip over chances and end up in errors.
Mystery 1: startup line 95: increasing indent not allowed, expected 2 was 3
Mystery 2: startup line 222: increasing indent not allowed, expected 2 was 3
Mystery 3: startup line 357: increasing indent not allowed, expected 2 was 3
Mystery 4: startup line 499: increasing indent not allowed, expected 2 was 3
I’m not sure how mysteries it should have, but I’m looking forward to them.
This is an interesting concept. I must point out that newborn babies are, in fact, capable of smiling. This capability is actually developed well before birth. However, it is true that the smiling done by newborns is most likely reflexive, rather than responsive.
Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! I’ll seriously consider working on this project now. If I do, I’ll be sure to change the “inputting an answer” system. There’s gotta be an easy way to do it with a subroutine, instead of using a tree with 10+ branches.
Nice one! One suggestion is that some mysteries can be connected in each other in terms of plot (Though I do notice that all of the mysteries are already connected). You can also place a difficulty level for the mysteries if you want.
lol I completely overthought the first question for a while since I’ve never heard of a college having a major that was just “science” without any qualifiers…
This is an interesting idea and I would like to see it continue. It’s always nice to see people doing things in the platform that it might not have been designed for (although I think there was a riddle hosted game previously? The Dryad’s Riddle I think, but I’ve never played it).
I didn’t notice the index of clues when I played… it’s probably good to have some hint system though. Some parser-based IF have a hint system that lets the player ask for progressively more detailed hints.
That could be a whole character arc right there.
