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A jam submission

There was A caseView game page

A puzzle solving investigation game
Submitted by martian209 — 1 hour, 45 minutes before the deadline
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There was A case's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Design#19201.8382.600
Overall#21161.8862.667
Originality#21291.8382.600
Adherence to the Theme#21711.9802.800

Ranked from 5 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted

Congrats on getting you game pick on Mark's stream

Submitted(+1)

There doesn't seem to be a corpse anywhere. How was the victim killed? Also, none of the witnesses mention the time anything happened, nor if they're talking about anything recent.

Developer

yes Colin, we forgot to place the dead body in hurry. Also we made sure that the location of dead won't affect the solving of case. The  dialogues were made in a bit of hurry so i forgot to mention the time. But the identity of  culprit can be revealed by talking to suspects.

Submitted(+1)

No, it can't. Further, talking to the suspects isn't even helpful. Here, let me show you.

This is a list of all the info I got talking to the suspects. The asterisks indicate having to talk again after having already talked to everyone more than 5 times. The double asterisk indicates talking to everyone a second round of 5 times, looking at the items and then talking to them again. The reason I marked them is because the only reason I did any of that was to make absolutely sure before criticizing further. I would not and did not do that when just playing for fun.

mr. sunflower likes the perfume

red chef likes red chilies
*claims people here are experts at losing knives
**bought more wine bottles

ms. sunflower wanted the coat for herself...as a "mememto"
oddly hesitant about buying the rope
*used to forget the knife in his room

butler always wears black
ironed the coat yesterday
*was going to serve the wine bottle

mr. white has a white hat
asked butler to use poison on rats
owned the perfume
bought the poison
wants wine

mr emerald likes green things
thinks it's hard to find knives in the kitchen
*offers glass of wine

miss violet wanted to drink wine with the victim
asked emerald to make a swing with the rope (he didn't)
also used the perfume
claims she bought the rope

miss rose hates rats. wants butler to use poison on them
*saw many wine bottles in the kitchen

kitchen knife has blood
wine glass has blood
poison exists
wine bottle is apparently beyond the detective's ability to analyze
the rope for the swing was used but is not on a swing
perfume smells nice and can be used by anyone
the coat is mr. sunflower's

Without a body to analyze nor anyone saying how the victim died, there are three different methods of murder presented here: stabbing, poison, and strangulation. Without knowing anything about the social arrangements of the mansion or the events of any prior day whatsoever, there is no way of eliminating it further. If the victim was stabbed, the wine glass was nearby, and the rope was used for some other mysterious task. If the victim was poisoned, the wine glass was used and nearby when the victim showed symptoms, which could include vomiting blood. If the victim was strangled, the wine glass was nearby due to people liking wine and the victim spouted blood due to having his throat broken. If the knife was not involved, the butler could've been planning a surprise meat dish.

Further, the testimony makes it very clear that anyone could get a knife (because otherwise "people" wouldn't be able to lose them, and mrs. sunflower couldn't have forgottem), that anyone could've accessed the rope (because it's just sitting there and everyone was aware of it), and that anyone could (and did) bring in bottles of wine. Even the poison could've been taken by anyone because everyone knew about the rats, and everyone had access to the kitchen (because that's how they would've gotten a knife).

All the rest of the statements from suspects are fluff. Worse, they're fluff the player had to interact a random number of times with each suspect to get.

Developer

everything you mentioned is correct colin.  And actually we initially planned to have everything based on the dialogues and clues but we also wanted to place the deadbody. But then as this was our first game jam together everything didn't go that well and the last and important part (dialogues) were a bit rushed. Also the instructions given in this game are not very clear which makes it even harder. As for the game which is live right now here, what actually happens is every suspect has 3 clues assigned to them. You have to talk to them (random number of times which should not happen lol) to get to know what the clues are. Your feedback is much much appreciated as it will help me and my partner to make this game a little better and maybe we will make a better game in the next game jam :)