Sleuth

sgreig
Hello All!

I'm new to the forums here, and to some extent to Quest as well. It's not ready for release yet, but since it's getting closer to completion I thought I would take this opportunity to announce my upcoming murder/mystery whodunit game, Sleuth. The game is based on the 1983 DOS game Sleuth by Eric N. Miller, and plays similarly to clue. At the start of the game, a murder has been committed and you are the investigator sent to the mansion to interview the suspects and deduce who killed the victim, in what room and with what weapon. Once you think you've got it figured out, bring the murder weapon to the room in which you believe the crime was committed, GATHER the suspects and ACCUSE the murderer.

If it sounds simple, it's not. Before you can find the murder weapon, you need to locate your magnifying glass which is hidden somewhere in the house, and the suspects aren't always co-operative in answering your questions. To top it all off, if you take too long the murderer will become suspicious and begin stalking you, eventually killing you if you fail to solve the murder in time.

The game currently features a lot of randomization for replayability, including 2 different mansion layouts. If it's possible, I'd like to have the game in a finished state by the beginning of March, but my absolute latest goal is the end of March. I'll be keeping this thread updated as a sort of devlog for anyone who's interested.

I'm also curious to know what kind of interest there is in a game of this nature, so please feel free to comment/ask questions/make suggestions/etc. :-)

mattroks101
Sounds like a cool game, any idea when it will be done?

sgreig
Thanks mattroks! Things are moving along quite well. I've emailed in my intent to enter Sleuth for the SpringThing 2012 competition, and although I haven't gotten a confirmation yet, if I get accepted I have until April 2 to finish the game and submit it. I'm anticipating it will be done before that, but I believe the terms of the competition state that I can't release it prior to that.

If for some reason I don't get accepted, I'll release it when it's finished, which will likely be later this month sometime.

sgreig
I just in my entry fee for SpringThing 2012 yesterday, so it looks like I'm in! :D

mattroks101
Awesome! I look forward to your game.

sgreig
Well, it's not as feature complete as I would like, but I have a finished version of Sleuth that has been submitted to the Spring Thing 2012 competition. The games should go up tomorrow at http://www.springthing.net to be downloaded, played and judged. In the meantime, I'm taking the weekend off and will work then resume work on implementing the last of the features that I want, and when the competition is over, I will put the game up on the web player.

UPDATE!!

The 3 entries for Spring Thing 2012 are now available for download at http://www.springthing.net - please download all the games and try them out. And if you like my game, please vote for me!

davidw
I'm playing this game for the Spring Thing. I've selected option 2 from the introduction and it asks me for my name. No matter what I enter, the game won't accept it and often hits me with an error message. Is this a bug?

sgreig
Yes, and I have it fixed, but according to the competition rules, I can't release an updated version of the game until the competition is over. The problem is with an improperly capitalized variable name that got screwed up when I was fixing something else.

Also, to clear up some confusion people have had, the personalized option allows you to name the characters in the game, including the murder victim. This information is in the Game Info section of the game object, but I realized that info only displays when it's uploaded to the textadventures.co.uk website, and I neglected to include a readme file. Oh well, it's my first competition and I was scrambling to the last minute to get everything in a playable state. Apologies for the inconvenience.

zaphod
I am interested in playing your game for Spring Thing, however I have a Mac and can't seem to find an interpreter. I have been able to play Quest games before via a web-based interpreter. Might it be possible for you (or someone else?) to publish the game in that form? Alternately, do you know of any other way I might be able to play your game?

sgreig
Unfortunately web-based versions of games are not allowed according to competition rules, because it would be too easy for people to violate the "no in-contest updates" rule. The only thing I could suggest is setting up a Windows install on your mac via bootcamp, or within MacOS via some virtualization software like VMWare or Virtualbox. Alternatively, you can try installing Wine for MacOS and then installing Quest. I don't know how well Wine works on Mac though, as I don't have one.

Thanks for the interest though! Once the contest is over, I'll have a new version uploaded to the web player ready for public consumption. :)

sgreig
To anyone who is interested, here's an update on the progress of Sleuth...

I've made a lot of headway with the game, and it's almost to the point where I'm finished with it. Just a couple more little issues to iron out, and then I just have to add some more items into the game and it'll be done. The competition ends in a little less than 24 hours at this point, and although I don't think the public release will be ready by then, I will provide anyone interested with a link to the private beta, and once I finish adding all of the content and dealing with any bugs the beta testers find, I will make the release public.

And then, depending on a couple of factors, you may find Sleuth available on iOS and Android platforms in the near future... ;-)

sgreig
Well, the results are in and Sleuth took last place in the SpringThing 2012 competition, but as it was horribly buggy and untested, that's not unexpected. I still won $40 though, so I'm happy with the results. In celebration, I've made the current beta public so please feel free to play it and leave your comments. Be sure to read the instructions prior to playing, and if you have any problems or questions feel free to mention them here.

As a side note, you can now use "talk to <suspect>" in addition to "ask <suspect> about alibi" to simplify things somewhat.

Until the game gets approved by Alex officially, you can access the game here: http://www.textadventures.co.uk/review/495/

mattroks101
Been a while since I've been on the forums, anyway, glad you finally got your game in the beta phase. Imma gonna go play it now.

sgreig
Cool, thanks. Let me know what you think. It's mostly done, but I've been pretty lazy about adding the final additions. Maybe if more people were playing the game I'd feel motivated? :)

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