Mystery Party

Artists Statement

            I was trying to think of classic choose your own adventure books and old board games. I’ve always loved videogames I’ve played classic RPGs like Mass Effect and the Witcher games all story-telling games where the players choice affects the game you impact the characters and the world. It feels like you have a real impact on the environment you are surrounded by. I wanted to try and give the player this experience, it’s difficult to do this correctly but I finally settled on doing a murder mystery game. I used to love playing the game of clue with Colonel Mustard and the gang of interesting characters.

            My original project was trying to place the story around the victims, you learn about the victim through the eyes of the other characters as the narrative would unfold secrets would spill and the character would be learning enough information about the cast of characters that I would then give the player choices their decisions lead them down a path for a specific ending. The player is paired up with Detective Clue the player would form a partnership with Detective clue as he introduces the characters and the narrative to the player as the player gets to form their own type of relationship with Detective Clue and influence the story with his decisions.

            The want and need of the player character are simple, the player needs to find the killer this is the driving goal of this hardened detective with years of on the job experience. The wants of the detective differ depending on the choice. Most of the choices in the game have the player choosing how they want to investigate. Do they look for clues, questioning the characters is a vital part of the game one in particular is The Server the player chooses how they wish to make this character talk. The player gets to choose whether to be honorable or to beat some information out of the server. It tests how far the player is willing to go in the game. fates of characters are decided by the player. Coming up with the story beats was simple, being able to go through the case solving clues came naturally. The player chooses the type of detective they want to be they question those around the crime and look for clues everywhere. It was only natural when you think about what a normal detective does, I just took the story beats from a typical case and used these as story points when coming up with my narrative.

            The player’s wants are different because the cases depend on the players choices, the player needs to solve the case to complete the game and I would say that narratively the character of the player would solve the game and that is what this detective needs to do. The player is the Sherlock Holmes of this case while the player character is never actually named. This was done to try and make the player get invested in the story and then the character would have their own interactions with all the characters. The player character is the last officer to arrive on the scene where he meets his new partner Detective Clue. I wanted to get the player to feel like they were the detective and that they could solve the case however they might’ve wanted to. Since the player has to choose who the victim is, the roles of characters changes depending on who gets killed. The various storylines make this a very difficult game to develop, I was really looking to make this a very in-depth story line but I feel like I did not have enough time to achieve this feat as I wasn’t able to go as in-depth with some characters during certain storylines.

            I wanted to get the player invested into the story and make the story change with the player so that no two players will have the same experience. The player and character both need to solve the case and as they go through the story they will be tested and depending on the choices they make the narrative will change to go along with the play style of the player. The interests align because of how in depth the player can get with the game. Like some of the games that have inspired this project the player can get invested into the story and since it feels like their choices affect the story. The player gets invested and will want to form a friendship with Clue and solve the case as two partners taking on the world. While I do believe this is quite ambitious it is my goal for the assignment, I feel that my actual project came to be more of a rough draft of my actual piece that I wanted to develop. I needed more time to write out all the interesting cast of colorful characters as they aren’t as fleshed out as I would like. I really only had enough time to develop just two of the stories and it doesn’t really get the player as invested as I would’ve hoped. I will still continue to try and make this game after this project since it is not what I originally intended it to be. I still have all the character wants and needs but I do not have the side characters to really get the player as invested in the world that I was looking forward to building.