We were supposed to finalize our final project idea today and I am going ahead with the interactive murder mystery project as a group project with Bhavicka.
The interactive murder mystery game would let the user play detective at a murder scene. They will get a sense of the murder scene and characters in the beginning. Followed by this, they can inspect objects from the murder scene and get clues. Finally, the user can select who the murderer is.
As for the storyline, we have developed a pretty vague idea. We want the murder victim to be a rich man who was at their holiday home in a hill station in south India. We want to add in some supernatural elements (like Yakshi) to add to the thrill. For aesthetics, we want to have a soundscape that would consist of typical murder mystery elements like a nursery rhyme out of place, jumpscares, etc.
Materials/Space Needed
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- Projector – we were thinking this would add to the aesthetics – but we are unsure about this
- Slider – to choose menu options, choice of character, etc.
- Gloves
- Aluminum Foil
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Timeline of the Game
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- Set the story – user interaction includes using buttons to go to the next scene and during this part of the game, the player gets to understand the characters, the story, and the motive of the game.
- Clues inspection – in this part, the user gets to interact with the objects from the murder scene and find clues. The story develops in parallel as the user interacts with the objects to find clues. We were thinking of having the story progress once the user finds, for example, 2 clues. Rather than having a timer to reveal the story. So, the story goes at the pace of the player. Here are some ideas we’ve had for the clues:
- Morse code with LEDs – have it seem like the supernatural element is communicating the clues to the player
- Hidden switch in one of the objects to reveal a clue
- Letters/messages/diary notes are revealed
- Set up a switch that requires simultaneous pressure on multiple items. We were also thinking of having the pressure points be tapped in a certain sequence and a sequence is revealed by an earlier clue.
- User chooses their pick – they can reach this phase by either pressing a button mid-game deciding to finalize their pick or after they’ve found all the clues.
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The user has access to all the clues they found so far – throughout the game – they can access it by clicking a button. This helps them review all the clues they’ve gotten so far as they progress through the game.
Hardest Part
The hardest part would be to develop a storyline that is engaging enough for the player to continue interacting with. We think that once we have the story and aesthetics finalized, it should get better to implement them in code. The clues can be coded separately using different sensors so, integrating code for the clues would be easier. We also want to make sure the clues are easy enough to crack but not too easy so that the user has fun playing the game and is not bored/finds it too hard.