[HN Gopher] How to commit murder inside a locked room
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How to commit murder inside a locked room
Author : hooboy
Score : 56 points
Date : 2022-02-17 20:24 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tedgioia.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tedgioia.substack.com)
| TomK32 wrote:
| The running series of Death in Paradise (it is rather mundane but
| a welcome caribbean distraction for us northerners in those dark
| winter months) featured such a murder in episode four and I shall
| not spoil it, only say that I didn't expect that ending.
| sdkman wrote:
| Is it safe to click?
| david_allison wrote:
| Yes
| OscarCunningham wrote:
| In locked room mysteries the evidence seems to be saying that
| there are zero ways the crime could have happened. This makes
| them nice to solve because as soon as you work out one way it
| could have happened it's usually clear that it's the only way.
| Whereas with other murder mysteries you have multiple suspects
| and even if you have a guess there's no way to rule out everyone
| else.
| [deleted]
| Natsu wrote:
| That just gave me a crazy idea for a game, based on some similar
| books I've read online. Make a game where, say, you revive every
| time and your goal is to survive some set period of time but it's
| a mystery how to do so as many things are out to kill you. Say
| you have X hours before a large bomb will wipe out your city or
| whatever and several folks are waiting to kill you in the mean
| time or such and the goal is basically a rather large escape room
| with survival as the prize.
| amar-laksh wrote:
| You might like the game Twelve Minutes, your comment reminds me
| of it: https://twelveminutesgame.com/
| Quikinterp wrote:
| The plot of one of my favourite games, Outer Wilds (not to be
| confused with Outer Worlds), is about being stuck in a solar
| system where you die (avoiding spoilers intentionally) every 20
| minutes and you have to figure out why.
|
| One of my favourite games, the sense of mystery and the high
| stakes of the plot made it very intriguing to me.
| bduerst wrote:
| Yep, it's the basis of _Outer Wilds_ , one of the best video
| games of the last decade, but also others like:
|
| - _Sexy Brutale_
|
| - _Life is Strange_
|
| - _The Forgotten City_ (still playing this one)
|
| - _Twelve Minutes_
|
| There's also _Return of the Obra Djinn_ which is a reverse-
| mystery thriller, in which you piece together what happened
| to a ship in reverse murder order.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Edge of Tomorrow builds on a similar premise (Tom Cruise
| explores a decision tree):
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1631867/
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Part of the Groundhog Day genre of movies.
| https://filmbabble.blogspot.com/2020/08/groundhog-day-is-
| gen...
| awb wrote:
| Palm Springs tackles this subject matter as well, but as a
| comedy:
|
| https://imdb.com/title/tt9484998/
|
| And of course, Groundhog Day:
|
| https://imdb.com/title/tt0107048/
| bduerst wrote:
| Which is based on the short novel _All You Need is Kill_ by
| Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Worth reading if you liked the movie.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| >Tom Cruise explores a decision tree
|
| This is the most HN comment I've read all year!
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Reminds me a bit of the famous "Wizard of Oz" description:
|
| > Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills
| the first person she meets and then teams up with three
| strangers to kill again.
| flobosg wrote:
| The "Wandering" scenario from the Super Famicom RPG Live A
| Live[1] has a similar premise. You have a fixed amount of time
| before the final boss shows up, and you must find out ways to
| get and set traps that will affect that battle.
|
| [1]: Which, by the way, is getting a Switch remake:
| https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/live-a-live-switch/
| Melatonic wrote:
| Thats sort of the opposite of the game just released -
| Deathloop
| onion2k wrote:
| And Deathloop is from Arkane Studios, who make very good
| games (Dishonoured in particular).
| jquery wrote:
| Raging Loop on Steam will scratch that itch for you. Every time
| you die, you learn something new and new choices open up.
| derblitzmann wrote:
| You might find the Sexy Brutale an interesting game, since it
| is also centered around a time loop:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sexy_Brutale
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| Saw this on Battlestar Galactica, killer vents the atmosphere
| from an external control box and escapes unseen. Later on its
| noticed that everyone in the room has died. ;) You think there
| would be alarms on an engineering station someplace that would
| fire off when the atmosphere gets thin.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Presumably the old BSG?
|
| In the new BSG, atmospheric sensors feature in at least two
| episodes...the one where terrorists take over a bar, and in the
| one where Callie and the Chief get trapped in a launch tube.
| erik_seaberg wrote:
| In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Measure_of_Salvation it
| was just the O2, but that really ought to have a sensor.
| jquery wrote:
| Umineko: When They Cry has a great deconstruction of the locked-
| room trope. It's a very long story (5 gigabytes of voiced
| lines!), but a hugely entertaining deconstruction for any fan of
| the detective/mystery genre. One of the best mysteries I've ever
| read.
|
| https://umineko-project.org/en/ is the definitive version, but
| please support the author by also buying the game on steam or
| elsewhere.
| prosody wrote:
| An example from Umineko that might tickle an HN reader's fancy:
| six people are found murdered in six different locked rooms. In
| the room with each body is the sole key to the door of one of
| the other locked rooms. Together they form a circular linked
| list of closed room murders.
| foxfluff wrote:
| I really like Umineko, and that is the first thing that came to
| mind from this article.
|
| I gotta say the first episode (or was it the first two?) was
| rather off-putting for me because -- after a slow start -- it
| pretty much drags you through the mud with apparent fantasy
| elements that don't really seem to make any sense. I almost
| stopped reading.
|
| I'm still not entirely sure what to make out of the whole
| story, but I'm so glad I didn't stop at the first episode.
| Actually I feel like I should read it again now that I'm more
| accustomed to the logic.
|
| And yes it's a very long read. Estimates put it at around a
| million words.
|
| Right now the MG release is 40% off on GOG.
|
| https://www.gog.com/game/umineko_when_they_cry_question_arcs
|
| https://www.gog.com/game/umineko_when_they_cry_answer_arcs
| TheDesolate0 wrote:
| justinpombrio wrote:
| How to commit a murder inside a locked room, off the top of my
| head:
|
| - Are the windows locked? Otherwise it's a rock climber who can
| climb the side of the building. Some buildings are not that
| difficult to climb for a good climber.
|
| - The murderer was not in the room when the murder happened.
| Poison or a trap of some sort. (Kinda boring.)
|
| - The murderer was in the room when the murder happened, but
| locked the door behind themselves. (This one doesn't really work
| because the door is presumably of a kind that can't be locked
| behind you, or else no one would be surprised. Good to double-
| check, though, that you're _sure_ the door couldn 't have been
| locked behind someone leaving.)
|
| - The murderer was in the room when the _attack_ happened. The
| murderer attacks, then the murderer leaves, then the victim locks
| the door, then the victim finishes dying. This isn 't as far-
| fetched as it sounds: if someone nearly kills me and then leaves
| but it seems like there's a chance they might come back, hell
| yeah I'm going to lock the door, possibly even before calling for
| help.
|
| - The murderer is a carpenter. They locked the door, pocketed the
| key, put the door back into the previously empty door frame, then
| left. (This is a bit far fetched if the victim was found soon
| after death; door frames are a lot of work.)
|
| - The murderer is still inside the room, very well hidden. Say,
| inside the sofa where the stuffing should be, waiting very
| quietly until the investigation is over so they can leave.
| awb wrote:
| > The final third of the book was wrapped in a thin, paper seal--
| and came with a promise that the purchase price would be refunded
| if the book was returned with the seal unbroken.
|
| A freemium model of sorts.
|
| Rather than book samples and movie trailers it would be
| interesting to be able to start a story and decide a fraction of
| the way in wether or not to purchase the entire content.
| GrifMD wrote:
| That's basically Kindle book samples, you get the first chapter
| or so free and then hit a purchase button.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| I'd expect that _committing_ a murder in a locked room doesn 't
| really require much in the way of planning or knowledge. Put me
| in a locked room with someone and I don't need much (except the
| will and likely a weapon) to do the deed.
|
| However, _Getting away_ with committing a murder in a locked room
| is the hard part -- how do you exit the room and re-lock it from
| the inside? How do you make sure to remove all traces of you from
| the room? And a dozen other things that need to happen in order
| to _get away_ with such a murder.
| hyper_reality wrote:
| See Vanity Fair's excellent long-form article "The Body in Room
| 348" for a real life example!
| https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/05/true-crime-elegan...
| Ma8ee wrote:
| Without reading mode, that site is unusable. All those animated
| ads and banners are the blink tag all over again.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| > Without reading mode
|
| You answered yourself. Read View is great even with well-
| behaved sites, use it generously.
|
| Edit: I retract my comment, Reader View shows about the last
| third of the article, and I had already blocked JavaScript
| there in a previous interaction. Vanity Fair sucks.
| [deleted]
| whacim wrote:
| Here is an alternate version of the story.
| https://icantbelieveitsnonfiction.com/2020/10/20/greg-
| flenik...
| deeg wrote:
| By coincidence I have just finished JDC's "The Three Coffins"
| (AKA "The Hollow Man") [0], written in 1935, where at one point
| one of the characters break the fourth wall. He talks directly to
| the reader and laments that in the end the reader will be
| disappointed in the solution. Which I was, slightly.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Man_(Carr_novel)
| bduerst wrote:
| I tried scanning the article for recommendations of these locked
| room mysteries, but didn't go past the spoilers tagline.
|
| Can anyone recommend where you can find these?
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