Feedback and suggestion on Crime Scene game

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by spocchio June 27, 2013 05:46 PM

1 comment, last by spocchio 10 years, 9 months ago

139

Author

June 27, 2013 05:46 PM

As you may had noticed a new game called Crime Scene came to Facebook. When I was going to play it, I thought it would be amazing and I would had felt like a real detective in front of a scene of crime, I guessed it would be a Graphic Adventure game where you have complete freedom on going around the crime scene, collecting and mixing objects, having complex dialog with the suspected, collecting objects and finally, with the power of my intuition, to be able to reconstruct the story, figure out who the culprit is, the motive and the murder weapon.

Nothing of all happened, it is just a bunch of puzzle games where you have to mainly find some predetermined object..

So I've thought about this kind of Graphic Adventure Crime Scene I had in mind:

- The case:

As the good old Sherlock Holmes stories, the detective receive an account of the research done by the police, which, however, does not know how to go on, the player know a bit of background story and the suspected(s).

- The crime scene:

I really like Graphic Adventures, and I think the player should have the complete freedom on going around the building of the crime, he could analyze almost everything, pick up some objects that may be futile as not and talk (choosing from pre-made questions that can be change if the player had or not analyzed some objects - e.g. "what do you know about the knife under the mattress??")

If not the changing in the dialogues there will be no more clues on the solution of the crime, there won't be external advices.

- Solving the case:

The player should have a complete freedom in choosing who is the perpetrator, and how the crime happened, a complete freedom is not possible in that kind of game but the player could choose from a wide set of possibility:

He/She had to choose, from a list of all the character involved in the crime, who is/are the guily of the crime, and have another list in he can choose the murder weapon from an enormous set of possbile objects in the scene of crime, he have to choose the motive from a wide range of possible motives and, possibly have to tell additional information for certain motives (e.g. motive: betrayal, with: Mickey Mouse. )

Would you like a game play like that? what would you change? where you will get inspiration about the crime stories?

HappyCoder

5,076

June 27, 2013 07:49 PM

If done right, I would enjoy playing such a game. I know there was a crime scene game called L.A. Noire that looked interesting, even though I have never played it. One thing that I am very impressed with in that game are the facial expressions. They look really good and actually are part of the gameplay when interrogating somebody. Based on the Wikipedia page there may be some elements from you idea implemented in their game you can look at, that is if you don't mind the Mature nature of the game.

Just keep in mind that a game as you describe can very quickly generate an unmanageable amount of paths the player can take. For example, what would happen if you accuse a certain person using a gun, with jealousy being the motive. What would they say? How would that change if you used a different weapon or motive? If I were to go about doing this I would probably have the dialog be generated using different parameters. To keep it from feeling robotic, I would try to have custom dialog for commonly chosen combinations, including the solution to the case. Basically what I am getting at is there is a definite technical challenge to be overcome to do what you are describing well. If you could pull that off I would definitely be interested in the game.

My current game project Platform RPG

spocchio

139

Author

June 30, 2013 08:29 AM

Yeah, my first idea was to make a Facebook game, so:

1) you should solve it as fast as possible making less mistakes as possible in order to brag to your friend

2) everyone has to be able to solve a case in a reasonable time.

So, my idea is that, when a case is designed it should contains all the evidences of the murder, the weapon and the motive.

so, when a player makes the wrong choice the system tells him an evidence which should fix a part of the solution.

I'll give an example... let's think the user is playing in the scene from "A study in scarlet" of Sherlock Holmes,

if he makes the wrong combinations about murder,motive and weapon the system says:

"There is no blood of the body in the scene, so the weapon is poison"

if the user makes a second wrond combination the system'll says:

"There is a wedding-female ring in the floor, the mandatory is the gealosy (there aren't sufficent proofs about the woman's name)"

if the user makes a third mistakes:

"the telegram from Cleveland says that the dead man had requested protection from a rival in love that has followed him from America to Europe, his name is called Jeferson Hope, and he is the murder."

So you have 3 chance to solve the case since the 4th time the system has told you all the necessary information to solve the case (showing all the evidence).

I think the score have to be related to the solving time but mainly to the mistakes made.

Feedback and suggestion on Crime Scene game

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Feedback and suggestion on Crime Scene game

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