[HN Gopher] Show HN: Mystery-o-matic - A daily murder mystery to...
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Show HN: Mystery-o-matic - A daily murder mystery to solve
Author : galapago
Score : 49 points
Date : 2023-07-07 09:16 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mystery-o-matic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (mystery-o-matic.com)
| tnecniv wrote:
| If you like solving mysteries like this, I suggest getting a copy
| of Cain's Jawbone. It consists of 100 pages out of order and
| multiple murders. To win the game, you must not only solve each
| murder but correctly order the pages.
|
| It'll keep you busy for a while.
| nemo1618 wrote:
| In the same vein, I highly, _highly_ recommend playing Return
| of the Obra Dinn. Slowly piecing together the fates of all the
| people on the ship is deeply satisfying, sorta like a sudoku
| puzzle.
| galapago wrote:
| Return to Obra Dinn is a great game, indeed!. I will also
| recommend to check the Case of the Golden Idol.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Slowly piecing together the fates of all the people on the
| ship is deeply satisfying, sorta like a sudoku puzzle.
|
| Return of the Obra Dinn relies completely on the fact that
| you can make guesses and the game will confirm for your
| benefit whether or not those guesses were correct. The
| information you're "piecing together" is not actually present
| in the game - you have to guess it, and sometimes the game
| will tell you that that's what the game developers were
| thinking too.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I guess it's implied that people only travel between rooms on
| 15-minute boundaries, or something? And maybe it's implied that
| the murderer always lies and the non-murderers don't? I dunno.
| The clues are really confusing without understanding the meta-
| rules behind them, which don't seem to be written down.
| galapago wrote:
| Hi, thanks for the feedback, let's take a look:
|
| > I guess it's implied that people only travel between rooms on
| 15-minute boundaries, or something?
|
| Yes
|
| > And maybe it's implied that the murderer always lies and the
| non-murderers don't?
|
| Right now, clues are always true, but the murderer will omit
| saying something very incriminating. But since the website is a
| prototype, this will most likely change in the near future
| (e.g. murders can lie, but the other suspects will always tell
| the truth).
|
| > I dunno. The clues are really confusing without understanding
| the meta-rules behind them, which don't seem to be written
| down.
|
| I think you are right, the website needs better (and more)
| explanation, as well as an expanded tutorial.
| ajkjk wrote:
| (I still think it's really, really cool, by the way; please
| don't get discouraged by the criticism. With some UX /
| intuitability improvements it'll be awesome.)
| galapago wrote:
| I'm the developer of this mystery-o-matic.com, happy to answer
| any question here or receive feedback!
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| Very fun and original, I love imperfect information games. Took
| me ~20 clues and a bit of guess work for this one.
|
| I didn't see a description of what the titles meant (is
| "constable" good?).
|
| What kind of data structures and algorithms did you use to
| represent the game, find a solution, and choose the clues?
| galapago wrote:
| Thanks a lot. I'm planing to add the exact description to
| each rank very soon. The "constable" is the lowest rank,
| motivated by this definition:
|
| > a British police officer of the lowest rank
|
| However, since English is not my native language, I don't
| know how easy to understand this is.
|
| Regarding the data structures, the engine generates a
| complete program represents the mystery. Then, it uses fuzz
| testing to find a solution (and minimizes the number of
| clues). The engine to generate the mysteries will be open-
| source soon!
| dylan604 wrote:
| How long did/will it take Parker Brother's lawyers to find out
| about this?
| galapago wrote:
| grinning_face_with_sweat_emoji
| bluepod4 wrote:
| I don't see it explicitly mentioned in the instructions, but
| I'm assuming that the room web/map means that someone can only
| get to certain rooms by going through other rooms?
|
| For example, in today's challenge there's only one way to get
| from the living room to the bathroom by going through the
| kitchen.
|
| Is this correct?
| galapago wrote:
| Yes
| bluepod4 wrote:
| Thanks for the reply. I originally started filling out the
| notebook without assuming this since I was getting
| Clue/Cluedo vibes where you don't need to enter one room to
| get to another technically. But this is cool.
|
| Are you a huge fan of murder mysteries?
| galapago wrote:
| Yes!, I'm always looking for good detective stories or
| games, in particular where the reader/player can actually
| solve the case. Any recommendation?
| frud wrote:
| Do people always spend increments of 15 minutes in a room? Can
| they run through a room to get to another room? That is, if the
| map is A-B-C, can they be in A from 9:30-9:45, run through B,
| then spend 9:45-10:00 in C? Dave said: "I saw
| nobody when I was leaving the living room at 10:30"
|
| Does this mean no one was in the living room when he left it? Or
| does it mean no one was in the room he entered when he entered
| it? Or both?
|
| What is to stop a person from being in multiple rooms within a 15
| minute period?
|
| If a person exits a room at the same time someone else enters it,
| does either see the other?
| johncessna wrote:
| I really like these types of puzzles. Here's some feedback:
|
| I think I either missed a clue (i triple checked) or it came down
| to a guess on the time. I hope it's the former and not the later.
|
| I also had a couple of waste clues. Once I had the murderer, I
| had a few possibilities of the murder weapon but then clues
| narrowed that way down. Out of 4 weapon possibilities, having 3
| clues say what the weapon wasn't is 1-2 too many, especially that
| late in the game.
|
| The graph was a little confusing. It's not clear that the
| relation of the rooms matters from the game/clues, but the graph
| makes me think it is. (this was written before I saw the how to
| play link, see below)
|
| I got a constable score. I have no idea if that's a good score or
| a poor score, probably the later since I went through all the
| clues.
|
| The how to play link should be at the top in the first set of
| directions on how to play. I think another commenter said that it
| takes at least 15 minutes to change rooms. IE in the example if
| Alice is in the kitchen at 10:15, she couldn't have been in the
| bathroom at 10:00. She could only be in either the living room or
| bedroom at 10:00 to be able to be in the bathroom at 10:15. I
| didn't even make that leap until I had read that comment. Call
| that out specifically!
| jstarfish wrote:
| Cute exercise in timelining and contact tracing.
|
| Is this just randomized? It makes no logical sense and seems
| unnecessarily confusing:
|
| > The killer took the murder weapon from one of these rooms:
|
| > The gun from the kitchen
|
| > The knife from the living room
|
| > The poison from the bedroom
|
| > The rope from the bathroom
|
| Poison (of the pharmaceutical type) is usually found in
| bathrooms. Knives are found in kitchens, never near upholstery.
| Guns are usually found in bedrooms. Living rooms usually have
| something ropelike. If this is random, it's a bit fantastical,
| and all of it is suspicious in itself. Maybe limit randomization
| to shuffling 2 of the weapons around, because some red herrings
| are expected.
|
| Poison is kind of a crappy weapon for this game if you don't
| account for it being able to kill without the suspect and victim
| in the same place at the same time, only them both being in the
| same place at _some point_ in time.
|
| Also:
|
| There isn't much reason to use the "?" flag on the chart as it
| stands. Having a witness give vague, "don't remember exactly" or
| excessively-timeboxed clues ("I was in the bathroom from 9:00 to
| 12:00, leaving only to drop off some vinyl covers to the living
| room so I wouldn't shart on them, but don't remember when that
| was") would add some challenge. The murder solves itself if you
| just follow the clues, plot the whereabouts of each suspect and
| look for overlap.
| psychphysic wrote:
| Ashamed to say I can't work this out at all.
|
| It's hella tedious having to click reveal clue and then open the
| clue. Why not reveal a if available if you've got less than 3
| available?
| galapago wrote:
| > It's hella tedious having to click reveal clue and then open
| the clue. Why not reveal a if available if you've got less than
| 3 available?
|
| This is good feedback, I think the design is a leftover from a
| previous iteration. I makes sense to reveal and open a new
| clue.
| pnemonic wrote:
| Anyone here playing Shadows of Doubt on Steam?
|
| Really cool idea and this reminded me of it. Seems like they
| could be programmatically similar.
| jonas-w wrote:
| Reminds me of Black Stories:
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Stories https://www.moses-
| verlag.de/black-stories-English/103646
| galapago wrote:
| Uhm, interesting, but I cannot find any examples of these
| story/puzzles. Do you know where I can take a look to them?
| jonas-w wrote:
| Mhm interesting, didn't know that it is seemingly just a
| German thing, only with some editions that are translated.
| The stories are often very hardcore, but nonetheless we
| played these as teens after School together or even in
| school. It's an analogue "card game", one side of the card is
| known to all who participate which contains the story and the
| other side is only known to one person which has the
| solution. The participants that don't know the solution only
| can ask yes or no questions to the one who knows the
| solution. I don't own one personally, and the only things I
| found on the internet are some images of these cards, but in
| german. You could try to translate one with Google Translate.
| If you search for black stories on the official store you can
| see that there are 135 different versions of it (some are
| called different colors/names, e.g. pink stories, which are
| more harmless stories for children or "pferde stories" which
| are about horses)
|
| Many of then have an example image attached.
|
| I translated this one with DeepL for you. https://www.moses-
| verlag.de/black-stories-8/106746
|
| (Trigger Warning Eating Disorder)
|
| Translation (story): > The queen
|
| > After the meal, the queen died. If the guests had been more
| boring, she would still be alive.
|
| Translation (solution): > A beauty queen (like e.g. Miss
| America) was invited to dinner every night after her
| election. To maintain her weight, she stuck her finger down
| her throat after each meal. At a reception she was involved
| in many interesting conversations and forgot to retire to the
| toilet after the main course. Her overfull stomach ruptured
| and she died as a result.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I was expecting a lot more information upfront. Even exhausting
| clues left todays very ambiguous.
|
| The UI on mobile feels lacking. I wanted key facts to be more
| highlighted.
|
| The flow of information feels unnatural. It feels more like a
| semi-automated version of clue than solving a mystery.
| galapago wrote:
| Hi, thanks a lot for the feedback. This is actually my first
| website, it seems I have to rethink a few parts of it
| gaucheries wrote:
| Got it pretty quickly actually. Maybe I just got lucky with the
| clues.
| tobr wrote:
| Feels like a rough, very early prototype of a cool idea. I think
| it would be much more interesting if each clue was a question,
| like, "Frida, which room were you in at 10:30?" etc. Then I would
| actually need to think about how to use as few clues as possible.
| Now I don't think there's any way to get the answer right except
| by guessing until all the clues eliminating murder weapons.
|
| The UI for filling in who is in which room isn't great, it would
| make more sense to say which room each person is in than who is
| in each room - one person can just be in one room after all.
| galapago wrote:
| Thanks a lot for the feedback. The website is actually a
| prototype, with rules subject to change.
|
| > I think it would be much more interesting if each clue was a
| question, like, "Frida, which room were you in at 10:30?" etc.
| Then I would actually need to think about how to use as few
| clues as possible. Now I don't think there's any way to get the
| answer right except by guessing until all the clues eliminating
| murder weapons.
|
| This sounds a little bit like Clue, right?
|
| > The UI for filling in who is in which room isn't great, it
| would make more sense to say which room each person is in than
| who is in each room - one person can just be in one room after
| all.
|
| This UI is similar to the one murdle, which supposedly allow to
| make deduce (e.g. if someone is not in room A or B, then it
| must be in room C). I need to think on how to improve it..
| tobr wrote:
| > This UI is similar to the one murdle, which supposedly
| allow to make deduce (e.g. if someone is not in room A or B,
| then it must be in room C). I need to think on how to improve
| it.
|
| You can simply flip the hierarchy - the top-level headline
| should be the person, and the subheading should be the room.
| That would make exactly the example you give easier, as all
| the information is collected in one place. And you don't risk
| filling in that the person is in two rooms at the same time.
| digging wrote:
| What do I make of these clues?
|
| > Frida: I was in the $ROOM from 9:30 to 9:45
|
| > Frida: I saw no one in $ROOM when I arrived at 9:30
|
| > Frida: I saw no one in $ROOM when I left at 9:45
|
| to me, the third clue felt wasted. I had already marked off that
| nobody was there during that time. but does this also mean that
| nobody arrived at 9:45, and that nobody left at 9:30? in other
| words, do these clues tell me that nobody was in $ROOM between
| 9:15 and 10:00?
|
| anyway - pretty interesting game. I think it would be a _lot_
| better if the user could ask specific questions. "Where was BOB
| at 10:30?", and then receive the clue, "BOB was in $ROOM from
| 10:00 to 11:00" (because if you're investigating a murder, it
| would be unthinkable not to ask "for how long" as a followup...
| it should be a freebie). or maybe just "BOB was in $ROOM at 10:30
| and left at 11:00" if you want to be trickier. this would give
| the player some agency and hopefully allow the chance to unlock a
| large amount of information with a well-chosen question.
|
| also... does it really take 3 clues to determine the murder
| weapon? maybe that's a legacy of the older Clue game (which I
| haven't played), but I can't imagine showing up and having no
| idea which of (poison, knife, gun, or rope) was used to kill a
| person. by default, it should be obvious IMO (maybe there could
| be confounding issues, like they have stab wounds but _actually_
| died of poison and were stabbed afterward as misdirection), but I
| guess that takes away a big part of figuring out who did it by
| placing them in the room with the murder weapon. it would take
| some work to rethink that part, I guess.
| [deleted]
| MD87 wrote:
| It's a cool idea but it fell a bit flat for me.
|
| > However, it's important to note that every clue you view will
| have an impact on your overall score. Exercise caution and
| strategic thinking as you navigate through the evidence and
| interrogate the suspects to piece together the ultimate solution.
|
| That sounds great! But what actually happened was I clicked
| through clue after clue about person X being in room Y at time Z
| until I eventually got told what the murder weapon wasn't three
| times in a row. I didn't feel like I could exercise any caution
| or strategic thinking; it was just "Nope, this isn't enough
| information" over and over until "Yes, this is now enough
| information".
|
| At the point where I thought I had enough information, I realised
| I hadn't been consistent in how exactly I was using the notebook:
| does a tick in the "9:15" box means "They entered at 9:15" or
| "They left at 9:15"? The boxes really need to correspond to the
| times they're in the rooms, rather than the instants they move
| between (so either labelled with a range: 9:00-9:15, 9:15-9:30,
| or move the labels so they sit in the gaps in between).
|
| Also the "How to Play" link isn't openable in a new tab (because
| it's handled by javascript), and if you open it normally and go
| back to the main page you lose all your progress
| galapago wrote:
| Hi, thanks for the feedback!
|
| > That sounds great! But what actually happened was I clicked
| through clue after clue about person X being in room Y at time
| Z until I eventually got told what the murder weapon wasn't
| three times in a row. I didn't feel like I could exercise any
| caution or strategic thinking; it was just "Nope, this isn't
| enough information" over and over until "Yes, this is now
| enough information".
|
| I need to think about this, but for sure the clues will be
| refined to encourage this. Right now, there are only a couple
| of types of clues and they don't feel very organic.
|
| > At the point where I thought I had enough information, I
| realised I hadn't been consistent in how exactly I was using
| the notebook: does a tick in the "9:15" box means "They entered
| at 9:15" or "They left at 9:15"? The boxes really need to
| correspond to the times they're in the rooms, rather than the
| instants they move between (so either labelled with a range:
| 9:00-9:15, 9:15-9:30, or move the labels so they sit in the
| gaps in between).
|
| I need to think about this. English is not my first language
| and it could be possible that some sentence are misleading to
| native speakers.
|
| > Also the "How to Play" link isn't openable in a new tab
| (because it's handled by javascript), and if you open it
| normally and go back to the main page you lose all your
| progress
|
| I should fix this, thanks!
| MD87 wrote:
| > I need to think about this, but for sure the clues will be
| refined to encourage this. Right now, there are only a couple
| of types of clues and they don't feel very organic.
|
| Yes, with some more varied clues I can see how it could be
| very fun. Maybe an extra type of clue could be associating
| suspects with potential murder weapons (e.g. "Alice said she
| never touched the rope" or "Forensic testing found traces of
| Bob's DNA on the poison bottle").
|
| Or maybe another type could be like: "Alice heard someone in
| the bedroom when she was in the kitchen at 09:30". In the
| right circumstances that could give you _just_ enough
| information to deduce something.
|
| I'm looking forward to see where you take it! :)
| tnecniv wrote:
| Related to the above, one thing that wasn't clear to me was
| whether the first three clues should be sufficient to
| identify the killer. From a game play perspective, I don't
| think that matters because the theoretical high score
| (assuming you solve it without randomly guessing) could just
| be lower if you need extra clues for that problem due to the
| first three not being sufficient. However I couldn't tell if
| I was being dumb or I didn't have enough information.
| galapago wrote:
| You are right, it is very very unlikely that the first
| three clues are enough to identify the killer in any
| reasonable scenario. The ranking is still very preliminary
| and it will be improved very soon.
| tnecniv wrote:
| I like the concept quite a bit though! Keep chugging on
| it!
| mpalmer wrote:
| I agree a greater variety of clue types would make it more
| interesting.
|
| And then maybe each clue you reveal increases the chances of
| some failure outcome (e.g. murderer escapes, kills again,
| etc)? That would definitely prompt more caution and strategic
| thinking before revealing the next clue.
| masswerk wrote:
| I second the concerns over the boxes time table. The boxes
| should mark the spans _between_ the times given.
| irridiance wrote:
| Good fun. I think, though, that precision in language might be a
| challenge. Some previous comments I concur. Over and above those,
| I was very strict not to infer anything outside the minimum of
| what was said. For example, "I was in bedroom from 10:00 to
| 10:15" does not imply that "I was not in the bedroom before or
| after that time". Or, "I didn't see anyone when I arrived" only
| means I saw no one in the destination room, not that there wasn't
| someone in the kitchen (that I must have walked through) or the
| source room. Illogical that the murder could have happened up to
| 11:15, at exactly the same time that the police arrive--unless
| the victim phoned it in. These rules left ambiguity.
| galapago wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback! I agree that the rules and
| explanations needs to be improved. I don't like the ambiguity
| and I think the deductions you did are indeed, correct. I
| should focus on improving the language in general, since
| English is not my native tongue.
| galapago wrote:
| Obligatory comment, this website was partially inspired by
| https://murdle.com (if you haven't tried yet, it is great!)
| triceratops wrote:
| I've long felt that the mystery game genre is cool in theory but
| doesn't work in practice on computers. Most games end up being
| menu clickers. Or you have to add puzzles. Which is fun, but a
| puzzle game isn't the same as a mystery game.
|
| Generative AI changes things. It's possible to make a more open-
| ended game where you can act like a real investigator. Draw up
| lists of suspects, order forensic tests, call experts, interview
| witnesses, whatever you can think of.
|
| I wish a game like that existed.
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