The other day, I was watching this movie called
Mystic River. Itâs about the murder of a young woman,
called Katie Markum, and the two detectives who find her killer. And itâs fascinating to see these guys do
their job. The movie goes into quite considerable detail
about how these detectives crack the case, and so we see them conducting interviews,
chasing down leads, and figuring things out by going through the facts. POWERS: What makes her swerve without hitting
the breaks? DEVINE: I dunno, maybe something in the street. POWERS: Maybe, maybe And as I was watching, I started to think
about how you could turn this into a video game. Of course, there have already been plenty
of detective games, from classic point and click adventures like KGB, to murder mystery
side-quests for Assassinâs Creed, to full-blown detective adventures like Murdered: Soul Suspect. But few of them have really scratched that
itch for me. Itâs very rare that Iâll get completely
involved in one of these games - you, know, really, turning the clues and witness statements
around in my brain as I work towards that all important âeurekaâ moment, that defines
so much of detective fiction. It just doesnât really happen. So in this video, I want to try and figure
out what makes a good detective game. How do developers come up with interesting
mechanics that really let players unleash their inner Sherlock? But to achieve this, I think we first need
to go back to Mystic River and look at how these two detectives crack the case, so we can
figure out the best way to turn these investigation processes into video game mechanics. First, the detectives gather information. They get clues from the crime scene, like
the slug from the bullet that killed Katie, a list of phone numbers for hotels, from her
backpack, and the 911 call to the police. 911 TAPE: Son whatâs your name? He wants to know her name! Your name son, whatâs your name? Plus, they question people, like Katieâs parents, her friends, and a woman who witnessed the crime. PRIOR: Then it stalled, and someone said hi. DEVINE: Someone said hi? PRIOR: Hi. Okay, so this stuff is pretty easy to pull
off in a game, right? LA Noire, for example, managed evidence collection
just fine, with 3D objects that you can spin and manipulate. And Condemned had some cool gadgets to reveal
fingerprints and bloodstains in the crime scene. Plus, loads of games have dialogue trees for
talking to people - and we see those crop up in detective games all the time. So, thatâs no issue either. Itâs the next bit thatâs really tricky. So, the movie then shows the real detective
work, as the two cops work the case. We see them expose peopleâs lies. When Katieâs friends say she wasnât dating
anyone, Devine brings up the hotel phone numbers. DEVINE: A 19 year old girl isnât going to
Las Vegas alone, so who was she going with? PIGEON: Brendan
DEVINE: Brendan Harris? PIGEON: Brendan Harris, yeah. So, the information also lets them follow
leads. They can now talk to Brendan Harris, for one
thing. Plus, the ballistics on the slug match a gun
that was used in a liquor store hold-up during the 80s. So let's go check that out. LOONIE: I know who did it! Name, was Ray Harris. Used to call him âJust Rayâ. Next, the cops can find connections between
the evidence. Ray Harris is obviously related to Brendan
Harris. Time to call him in for further questioning. HARRIS: Why do you keep asking me if my father
had a gun? DEVINE: The gun that killed your girlfriend
is the same gun your father used in a robbery 18 years go. And finally, the detectives can make deductions. By looking at the current information from
a different perspective⌠POWERS: She doesnât hear a scream she hears
a gunshot, before that a hi, which tells me the Markum girl is either very friendly
or she knew âem. âŚor by making logical arguments. DEVINE: He said her name. POWERS: Sheâs a dead girl, you refer to
her as a she. DEVINE: Yeah but, how does the kid know that? The girl is dead in the park, how does he
know that the blood in the car came from a woman. Now, detective games have tried to turn all
of this stuff into gameplay. But one of the most common ways of representing
it is through simple multiple choice questions. Look at this bit in Telltaleâs The Wolf
Among Us, where Bigby picks up evidence and then the player gets to answer a question
about the clueâs significance. BEAUTY: What? What are you thinking? BIGBY: This is the same dress as the one in
the book about Snow. I think Smith was dressing Lily up in it. A similar thing happens in Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments when youâre questioning people. At specific points, a button will appear on
screen allowing you to uncover a lie in the witnessesâs statement, and pick the response
thatâll reveal their mistruth. I donât think this works at all because
the player is completely prompted by the potential answers. Theyâre not coming up with their own thought,
so much as simply looking for the answer that sounds most sensible. Or, in some cases, just guessing. Get the answer wrong in Sherlock Holmes and
youâll be told to give it another try. But I think this shows the real game design
challenge of making a detective game. Because the very act of testing whether the
player has figured stuff out, can inadvertently give away the answer - which removes pretty
much any sense of satisfaction when you get it right. âYou connected the evidence,â says Telltale. Woo, go me, Iâm awesome. Anyway. One way that games have fixed this multiple
choice problem is by simply giving way more potential answers. Look at this deduction screen in the game
Detective Grimoire. Itâs very similar to the one in The Wolf
Among Us, really: at a specific point in the game, Grimoire will need you to answer a question
about the events at hand. GRIMOIRE: Have I uncovered a secret in here? But instead of picking a single answer, you
have to create a thought by smushing together a number of disparate ideas. And with eight different pictures to put in
two slots, and two pickers with four statements each, thanks to the magic of âcombinatorial
explosionâ, there are a whopping 896 possible combinations meaning that while it still prompts
you a fair bit, at least randomly guessing is out of the equation. GRIMOIRE: That little girl isnât warm enough
for my beard to have happened. Uhhhh⌠no. Another example can be found in the Android
game The Trace, where you answer questions by dragging on the clues and observations
you have picked up. Because you often need multiple answers for
each question, itâs much harder to simply guess your way through the game. For lies, the Ace Attorney games have a good
system where witnesses give testimony and you can present evidence that contradicts
one of their statements. So here, Gumshoe says that the thief only
goes after the most valuable art pieces in a heist, but we know that the item that was
nabbed - a sacred urn - has no monetary value. So if we present this evidence in response
to this statement, we absolutely dunk on the poor fella because we just found a huge error
in his testimony. Being able to choose from any of roughly five
statements, and able to present from a huge list of clues and profiles, makes guessing
near impossible. Especially because the game has a life bar
that is diminished if you make a misplaced objection. So youâll really need to think hard about
which piece of evidence to present during each cross examination. Okay, so this is much better. Obviously. And it can lead to great detective bits like
this section from Life is Strange, where you need to pick the right clues from an evidence
board, to figure out where Nathan Prescott took someone after a party. The huge number of things you can pick from
largely gets rid of guesswork. And it encourages you to look for actual connections
like dates and times, or the fact that this dudeâs car has a broken taillight so this
must be a photo of his number plate. Plus, the game has some nice feedback for when
you offer the wrong answer, with a small hint that will help you along. MAX: If I can match one of the text messages
and transactions with Frank, then I can find the exact location. But this set-up is still kinda giving the
game away. Because while the player is no longer being
completely prompted by the answers, theyâre still being prompted by the text of the question,
and it can give away that thereâs even a question to be asked in the first place. Not to mention the fact that the game can
come across as some condescending jerk who has already worked everything out and is just
making sure that you are paying attention, making the player feel less like Sherlock,
and more like Watson. WATSON: How did I do? SHERLOCK: Well, John. Really well. I mean you missed almost everything of importance
but, you know. So perhaps we can go one step further, and
just give the player the tools to point out contradictions and connections, without first prompting them
with a question. Thatâs how it works in the aptly titled
Contradiction. In this campy FMV game you interview suspects,
and gather a big list of statements. You can then bump together any two statements
that contradict each other to catch your interviewee in a lie. This is very different to Ace Attorney because
in Ace Attorney you always know that you need to find a flaw in the current testimony. The game wonât move on until you do. But in Contradiction you can leave witnesses
and come back later, which means you can have loads of different conversations on the go
at once and never know exactly who is lying, or which group of statements contain a lie. It means the player really needs to follow
the case to know who is telling porkies. By the way, the most contradictory thing about
this game is the ever changing colour of Inspector Jenkâs trousers. Theyâre grey! He walks a few yards. Theyâre blue! What are you hiding, Jenks? Sorry. Sorry. Off topic. Where was I? Oh, yes. This works great for connecting two pieces
of evidence, as well. I particularly like the system in Papers,
Please which isnât a detective game at all! Itâs about working at a border patrol. But this system would work great in a murder mystery game. So in this game, you canât just reject people
from entering the country without providing a good reason, so youâll first need to flag
up a discrepancy between their dialogue or documents, and your rule book. So you press the big red button,
and can then highlight two things that are in contradiction. Perhaps, the expiry date on a personâs passport
and the current date. Only then, will you be able to make your discrepancy. These systems are both great because the player
is no longer responding to the game, as such, but instead telling the game that they have
spotted something interesting. And in the case of Papers, Please, the ability
to choose any two bits of text on screen is really awesome. There are simply too many combinations for
the player to just brute force a solution. The player has to get really specific about
the connection for the game to accept that theyâre on the right track. And it means that any piece of evidence can
be used, not just the ones that the game deems worthy of putting into your inventory. So this is a good solution for connecting
evidence and exposing lies. But it doesnât really hold up for making
deductions. Lemme explain, using this puzzle from Discworld
Noir. In this game, Lewton automatically jots down
useful information in a handy notebook and you can combine two notes to make a deduction. And here, we connect a strange phrase that
has been written on the wall of a crime scene, with the fact that the deceased was hung upside
down. LEWTON: If Mundy was hung upside down, and
if Mundy wrote the message, then the message was upside down⌠And thatâs a pretty good puzzle, right? But for it to work, the game needs to give
you notes for the strange phrase, Azile, and also âMundy Hung Upside Downâ. And that last note can really give the puzzle
away. Because turning thoughts into puzzle pieces,
means that youâre not using your own logic but simply using the logic provided by the
game. But to get any better than this, weâd need
a system that has no questions and nothing for the player to give as an answer. Which is impossible, right? Well Iâm glad you asked! So, compare the Discworld thing to this puzzle
in the lovely teeny-tiny rabbi detective game, The Shivah. Okay, so youâre reading the emails of this
guy who died, Jack Lauder. And you see these concerning messages from
a dude called Ethan G. Maybe heâs someone to track down? But we canât do anything without a surname. He might be the Goldwater that Jackâs wife
mentions in this email. But Ethan G also talks about money, so maybe
heâs from the accounting firm - Goldberg & Weiselbaum - mentioned in Jackâs ledger. Now hereâs how we test our deduction. We load up a computer and log on to a fictional
search engine. We type in Ethan Goldwater. No hits. Ethan Goldberg? Bingo. âWith a warm rush of triumphâ, the game
says, âI knew I found my manâ. Too right, Rabbi Stone, when I first played
the game that puzzle just felt electric. If the game had given us Ethan G and Goldberg
or Goldwater as clues, it would be effortless to just snap them together and get the right
name. But, instead, we have to take the information
out of the game world - and into our heads, or perhaps into a notepad - and work on it,
before slapping it back into the game and seeing if weâre right. So, to take it back to Discworld Noir, if
the player had to type that phrase in somewhere, they would have to do the logical work in
their head, of spinning the phrase upside down to reveal that it is actually â3712Vâ. Personally, I think that would be an even
better puzzle. Of course, no game did the search bar
better than Her Story. This is very different to the other games
in this video. Instead of wandering around, picking up clues
and visiting different locations, you simply sit in front of a computer and watch video
clips. And yet, it is the best detective game Iâve
ever played. By far. Hands down. A quick primer for those who havenât played
it. Her Story is - ostensibly - about figuring
out who killed a man called Simon Smith. But all youâve got to go on is a bunch of
old interviews with his wife, Hannah. These interviews are split up into about 300
video clips, but the only way to watch them is to type search terms into this box. And then, only the first five results, chronologically
speaking, will be shown to you. So, youâre essentially given nothing tangible
in this game. No clues, no statements, no observations written
down in an in-game notepad. But you will make deductions - and the only
way to check if youâre correct is to type in some kind of search term to see if you
get some new clips and can move the case forward. And when you do⌠it feels amazing. Thereâs nothing like it. No game comes as close to that âeurekaâ
moment as this funny little game about searching for videos. These systems are also great for following
leads, which is something that most detective games just outright ignore. New locations and witnesses are automatically
added as places and people of interest when you find evidence or talk to people. But in Blackwell, which is another game by
the creators of The Shivah, you can type interesting place names youâve heard or seen written
down into the internet to get addresses - before theyâre added to your map as locations you
can visit. So the magic of the search bar is that these
people and place names are only acknowledged by the game as useful clues when the player
has proven that they know theyâre useful clues⌠by typing them in. To a less observant player, itâs just another
random bit of text in the game world - but it really rewards those who pay close attention
to the game. A similar system can be found in Sherlock
Holmes: Consulting Detective, which is the computer game version of the board game of
the same name. And yeah, I know there are more up to date
remasters than this shabby olâ DOS version but I just love that lo-fi full-motion video
aesthetic. You canât beat it. So in this game, you actually get a newspaper
in the box, and have to scan through it for articles that might be relevant to your investigation
- in this case, Iâm looking for information on the mysterious deaths of three archeologists
and this article right here might have some useful info - like, how the investigation
of the second death was handled by a chap called Captain Herman Ramsey. Then, in the game itself, you open up a directory
of every person and business in London⌠okay, not really, but thereâs roughly 200
entries in here, at least, so youâll have to rifle through it to find the right person. The idea is to hide the relevant names in
a sea of red herrings. So instead of just being presented with a
list of locations youâll need to visit, you need to figure out for yourself which
locations are relevant by reading the newspaper carefully, and listening closely to the names
and businesses mentioned during the video clips. And if youâre wondering, if you go to a
building that isnât pertinent to the case it just plays a canned video like this. WATSON: How unfortunate, thereâs not a soul
in sight. SHERLOCK: Pity. At this point, I think weâve got pretty good systems
to choose from for gathering information, exposing lies, finding connections, following
leads, and making deductions. But, back to Mystic River. Now that the cops have all the information
they need, they can use this to make an accusation. Donât worry, Iâm not going to completely
spoil the film. So, what sort of system could we use to capture
this in a detective video game? Well, the one to avoid is Assassinâs Creed
where you just walk up to people and accuse them. If you get it wrong, you lose some points
and can try someone else. ALTON: I just lost my lifeâs love. How can you accuse me? If you get it right, hooray, a winner is you! Itâs not very satisfying, either way. So we need some way of having the player really
prove that they know who the suspect is, or how the murder went down. You know, do the proper Poirot reveal. One approach I like can be found in Eagle
Eye Mysteries - which is a surprisingly good kids game for DOS. Here, you go through the game by talking to
people and looking at stuff and gathering loads and loads of statements. And then, when you feel ready to solve the
case, you get to pick out the five most important statements in your log - and also the suspectâs
profile. Like, the person who pinched the pizza recipe. This is a kidsâ game, after all. This is pretty simple, but it actually works
quite well. The sheer number of statements you have and
the need to present five of them, means youâll need to have truly understood the crime to
be able to input the right answer. Plus, itâs near impossible to just guess
your way through. A similar take can be found in Lucas Popeâs
upcoming tribute to old school Mac games, Return of the Obra Dinn. In this game, you get this pocket watch that
you can use on skeletons to flash back in time to the moment that person died. You can now walk around this freeze-frame
vignette and try and figure out who is who, and how they got killed. And then - this is the important bit - you
can write down your deduction in the Crew Muster Roll. You just get a list of names, and for each
person you can use a few drop-down boxes to note that personâs fate. There are far too many combinations to guess
your way to victory. You really have to know the answer or the
game just wonât budge. Maybe another way to prove your knowledge
of the crime is through creating a timeline of what happened. In The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, you need
to number these different ghostly images to piece together the correct order of events
that transpired during the murder. And even multiple choice questionnaires are
slightly more fun when presented at the end of the game. Youâve got feel really confident in your
knowledge before you go into the courtroom at the end of a Consulting Detective case
and pick the murderer and their motive for the crime at hand. So, ultimately, a detective game is this fascinating game
design challenge for anyone who wants to take it on. We admire detectives because theyâre
smart, right? They know the right questions to ask a witness,
and they know how to chase down a lead. They can connect the dots to reveal the truth
and use deductive reasoning to see things from a different perspective. Detective video games promise to let the player
feel like that - in a way that no other medium really allows. And yet, so many of these games just bungle
the execution by holding the playerâs hand and practically giving away the answer. But there is still hope. Ingenious developers have come up with all
sorts of clever ways to test the playerâs intelligence without accidentally prompting
them, and I bet more systems will be made. In the mean time, let me know about games
that really put your skills of deduction to the test, in the comments below. Hey! Thanks for watching. GMTK is funded exclusively through Patreon.com,
where the showâs biggest fans support the show and get cool goodies in return like early
access, bonus videos, written articles, and Discord access. Come join us!
First of all, props to Mark for going through so many games to be as extensive as possible.
Mr Wendal made a video some time ago on this topic as well. He uses Sherlock Holmes' board game as an example.
I played a "hacking" adventure game called Hack Run, where all you have is your console interface and your imagination. This game was inspired by Uplink, which I've heard uses the kind of gameplay loop.
Her Story uses the similar free form computer inteerface adventure game tradition. Another recent game that had this (which I think was good too) was Orwell (First episode is free as a demo)
A little unrelated, but I'm currently playing Ace Attorney Investigation 2 and looking back at my Ace Attorney playthrough is when I realized how they turned words into gameplay. Finding lies in testimony, the "Logic" button and in AAI2, the Mind Chess.
So playing these games feel less like slogging through wall of text, and more like solving a puzzle in a 3D action adventure game, only inside your head..
Also unrelated, but there are a number of times in RPGs where you need to do some "detective" work. Here's one in Baldur's Gate.
I've only played 3 chapters of Hotel Dusk 215, but I'm impressed how it handles choices.
It's impossible to put it into words, but it presents this "illusion" that the way you are going through the game's narrative isn't linear.
Even if you make a "mistakes", the game continues just like real life would.
Not sure how it'll pan out in the end.
The worst part of any narrative with a mystery is when the smartest character in the narrative is depicted as a genius, but is only as smart as the viewer.
Probably the best 'detective' experience I had was the opening to Indigo Prophecy, where you play as the unintentional killer of a man in a restaurant bathroom who has to try and hide the body and escape, then you play as the detectives checking for clues the next day. You really got to see how you could screw up covering your tracks (not finishing your coffee, not paying, spending too long in the bathroom), and also you got to see how detectives could miss information (eyewitness accounts all wrong, wrong assumptions made, misleading clues purposefully placed or critical evidence missing). The rest of the game fell apart, but that first hour was incredible.
I feel like Mark have failed to acknowledge the other side of the problem, or the reason to why so many detective games are so hand-holdy.
The big reason for it is, well, choke-points. Gameplay moments that, if player for whatever reason fails, will stop the player from progressing. Actually, there is a great article about the very similar problems in the context of table-top roleplaying games, which discusses the problem as well as some solutions. Videogames have only one player to brainstorm, and they have no Game Master to save the day through the improvisation if you'll get stuck, which makes this problem even harder.
And this is a huge problem. It feels awesome... until the first mistake happens. After that you are stuck, possibly angry and there is a great chance that you'll just look up the walk-through and break the illusion and immersion completely. And this is not really about being "smart enough" type of niche for these games either: sometimes the reason will be something like you having to end your game session and continue the next day, and you'll just won't remember some details from yesterday. Or maybe you won't remember something because you believed that the bit of information was there for the sake of the worldbuilding, or for a joke, and is unrelated to the case itself. Sometimes it turns out that you missed the clues that very crucial just because you are not that good of a pixel hunter.
And after that, even if the game contains the ability to check all the previous dialogues and you can revisit all the locations to find the clues, you have no idea there have you missed it. From your perspective the missing line can be any line, and missed item can be in any of the locations, so you have to go through everything manually. Click on everything, try to brute force everything.
But what really seals the deal here, is that sometimes you can't know for sure if you are stuck because you have missed something like this or because you just can't follow the gamedesigner's logic (which, by the way, sometimes can be just somewhat stupid or inconsistent). Which means that you can be stuck in the previous paragraph-state even though you do have the required information.
And again, it takes just one mistake to get in this situation and have a horrible gaming experience. It is really an a big problem, and I don't feel like this video offered any solutions. All of the things he mentions and discusses are interesting and great, but we simply cannot move on until this problem is solved.
I'm a big fan of detective mysteries, but it has never been a genre of game that I have given much attention. I think the reality is that, while investigative mystery is one of the most popular genres of television, the actual act of solving a mystery requires far more work than most people are interested in investing into their entertainment.
The problem with making a popular game that accurately mimics the act of solving a mystery is that, the closer you replicate the act of "being a detective" you run the risk of deterring a sizeable portion of the audience. Your average player is more likely to just look up the solution when they get frustrated, which undermines the entire point of making something challenging. Bigger titles like The Wolf Among Us and Life Is Strange use simplified systems because they feel as though they have more to offer the player than just being a detective. They have interesting worlds and characters that they want the player to continue to experience, and they seem to value those experiences over the act of mystery-solving. There is nothing wrong with that, obviously, but it goes to show that a game has to sacrifice a lot to be a "real" mystery game.
FMV and Point-and-Clicks seem to do investigation best because they are already niche genres, and the player approaches them with a number of expectations as to what exactly the experience will involve. I can't speak for FMV games, but Point-and-clicks are notorious for stupid, frustrating puzzles, and the players of these type of games derive satisfaction from struggling through these challenges. That is the exact type of player that true, investigative mystery games want, so it should come as no surprise that that is where they have found a home.
Woah, 20 minutes of GMTK nice! Little sad he didn't mention Danganronpa at all. It's very similar to Ace Attorney gameplay (with some random, sometimes not-so-fun minigames) but at the end you have to completely piece together the entire crime like a manga chapter. It tests your understanding of the whole case well, and I really like that. I often find that these games have so many twists and turns in their reasoning, lies, and contradictions that I can't fully remember the whole timeline on the case.
The only good example that I can think of which isn't mentioned is Lara Bow: The Colonel's Bequest, a Sierra text adventure where you wander around a house, catching people doing certain things at certain times. This allows you to piece together the clues and catch the murderer. The sequel, The Dagger of Amon Ra is also a good game, but a much more traditional point and click adventure.
Does the video spoil that movie he's talking about? I'm not watching it all the way through because of that, but my issue with games like LA Noire is it leads you by the nose through it. Someone should make a game like the Sherlock Holmes boardgame where it just gives you a case and sets you loose. It probably wouldn't sell well because it would be hard but a low budget indie game that didn't have to make the money back for creating a 3D city could be interesting.
If anyone havn't checked out Her Story I really recommend it. It's rather short but you feel really smart when you figure out which scenes is in which order and what actually happens (or what the witness said/believes happend atleast...)