Item — HN Reader

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!

4 comments

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.

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.

I like the concept quite a bit though! Keep chugging on it!

> 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! :)

Dave said: "I saw Bob when I arrived to the kitchen at 9:30"

also

Dave said: "I saw nobody when I was leaving the bedroom at 9:15"

How could he leave the bedroom at 9:15, but arrive to the kitchen at 9:30? Where he was from 9:15 to 9:30? I assume that each transition takes 15 minutes, so that he can't step directly into the bathroom or the living room from the bedroom.

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.

This could work, but I need to make sure it will change a lot the dynamic (e.g. rewarding/punishing the player)