So I am making a text-dialogue based Detective RPG.
Its set in a fictional town loosely based off late 1800’s america/england. Kinda Sleepy Hollow meets Jack the Ripper.
and I know I want the point of the game to have different interactions with characters, and to earn points and skill level ups based on your interactions. Linear where it needs to be, but a pretty exploratory. Things are kind set up to happen in whatever order you chose. all that is fine and working dandy.
But Im trying to decide what the ‘catch the killer before the end of the game’ mechanic should be. I know I want you to have to catch a killer before he murders the town basically.
I was thinking something like:
<<set $murderers to {
Huck:0
Gravekeeper:0
Lucky:0
Soandsofourth: 0}>>
and have something randomly set 1 of them to 1 in the beginning, and thats the murderer for your file. and they all have different victims and whatnot.
Im sorry this is rambly. but is this a good idea? does it sound fun? do you have better ideas?
I think that sounds fine. It’s basically a game of Clue. It might be a bit complex for your first game, depending on how story oriented you plan on having it be, but it’s solid as a concept.
I would suggest choosing your murderer more like this though:
On the one hand, it would be simple for you to write a shallow story that allows you to swap out the identity of the killer, but that might not be fun for the reader. (Imagine reading a Mad Libs sheet that was filled out last month by somebody you’ve never met.)
The other extreme involves giving the reader an intricate, deeply written story where the details change every time, but that could be very complicated for you. (You’re no longer writing a single murder mystery set in an 1800s town, you’re now writing eight, nine, or ten different stories that happen to be set in the same place.)
Animalia, written by @imw comes to mind. It’s amazing, but he’d have to tell you how much work was necessary to pull it off.