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What Makes a Good Detective Game? | Game Maker's Toolkit
- Thread starter jack_package_200
- Start date
Damn Silly
Member
A very good watch, that (as always from Mark Brown).
Even as someone who enjoyed the likes of LA Noire and the Sherlock games, they were by no means perfect as pointed out, and hopefully we see better "proper" detective games in the future.
Even as someone who enjoyed the likes of LA Noire and the Sherlock games, they were by no means perfect as pointed out, and hopefully we see better "proper" detective games in the future.
More_Badass
Member
This was a great video. Now I really want a game that combines all those best elements and design choices he talks about
Guess I need to play Contradiction
Guess I need to play Contradiction
JB-the-Hunter
Member
broncobuster
Banned
Westerado does something neat for accusing suspects. Game is all about finding a killer and each quest gives you additional information on how to identify them. But you can accuse anyone in the game with your incomplete information, which can get you in trouble.
Tizoc
Member
SteamGAF's #10 GOTY Contender for 2015
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1174031
It hadn't gone on sale in a VERY long time, but for $10 or less it is def. worth it.
PurpleMoustache
Member
Glad to see The Blackwell series get called out. It's so so so good.
Still need to play The Shivah, going back to it after playing Blackwell is a bit rough. Dave Gilbert found his writing/designing legs a bit after The Shivah. How Long To Beat clocks it at an hour and a half so I guess I know what I'll be doing later today.
Still need to play The Shivah, going back to it after playing Blackwell is a bit rough. Dave Gilbert found his writing/designing legs a bit after The Shivah. How Long To Beat clocks it at an hour and a half so I guess I know what I'll be doing later today.
JonnyDBrit
Member
Was glad to see both Ace Attorney and Her Story crop up.
The latter especially honestly had one of the most engrossing experiences of deduction I've ever felt in a game, particularly when I stopped and thought about why I'd picked up on certain clues. Like realising I picked up on 'blonde' because of stereotypes.
The latter especially honestly had one of the most engrossing experiences of deduction I've ever felt in a game, particularly when I stopped and thought about why I'd picked up on certain clues. Like realising I picked up on 'blonde' because of stereotypes.
That's one of the best videos Mark has put up, although as someone who's always looking forward to a mystery I'm a bit biased. I share a lot of his complaints about most detective games. It rarely feels like you're a detective in them. And for me as for him, Her Story felt like the sort of game I'd always been looking for: no gamey rules or a neat short list of clues to pick from, just a database which has to be solved by you listening, watching and reasoning about information presented to you.
I'll have to check out a few of the games he mention. I've stayed clear of the Blackwell series but if they have more puzzles like The Shivah I'll have to play them. And I'm totally waiting for a larger budget 3D game to get it right, too, sometime.
I'll have to check out a few of the games he mention. I've stayed clear of the Blackwell series but if they have more puzzles like The Shivah I'll have to play them. And I'm totally waiting for a larger budget 3D game to get it right, too, sometime.
BigBoss007
Member
The best gaming-related channel in Youtube.
Also, I agree with Mark: Her Story is the best detective game I've ever played.
Also, I agree with Mark: Her Story is the best detective game I've ever played.
Messofanego
Banned
Damn right, Her Story is the best detective game!
Giving you all the agency to make connections through the search engine makes it so much more satisfying.
This reminded me it's been a while since I've heard anything from Return Of The Obra Dinn. Oh the Tigsource forum has got updates. Can't wait.
Giving you all the agency to make connections through the search engine makes it so much more satisfying.
This reminded me it's been a while since I've heard anything from Return Of The Obra Dinn. Oh the Tigsource forum has got updates. Can't wait.
More_Badass
Member
Only $5 on iPad
Abilidebob
Member
Is his channel the best videogame channel? Fucking love GMT.
I believe he's totally right that only those few games capture the real idea of being a detective but he also always mentions how little help the player gets from those games and I imagine therein lies the problem. If you want to make a game for a mass market you don't want players to get stuck at puzzles and when even guessing is impossible many might just drop the game altogether. That's probably why only rather lowbudget games risk this approach and not something like a LA Noir or Batman Arkham Knight.
More_Badass
Member
He's the closest thing to an "Every Frame A Painting" or Nerdwriter for games. We need more channels like his
GMTK for game design, ACG for reviews are really the only game channels I frequent. I also like AI and Games, which focuses on discussing AI in specific games and general AI design
NipplesAndToes23
Member
I haven't played any of these games. I ain't shit!
GMTK is as far from EFaP as it can possibly be.
Mark Brown actually uploads more than a single video per millenium.
Deserted Maniac Island
Member
I always thought of that Ace Attorney is more of puzzle game than a detective game. Discovering contractions relies on the players attentiveness to the dialog, more so than piecing together a case from nothing. But I guess the detective genre is about solving puzzles?
LordPhantX
Neo Member
Deadly Premonitiom great detective game.
JonnyDBrit
Member
If at the end of the day the fundamental point of the game is 'Whodunnit?', then it is a detective game. Given Ace Attorney's logic for getting your defendant a verdict of innocent is (mostly) by way of proving who the real criminal is, and much of your time is spent scrounging around crime scenes for evidence, and talking to people for testimony, it counts.
So yes, the detective genre is largely puzzle solving (the puzzle generally being the crime).
Affeinvasion
Member
Good video, but my question at the end is if you take away any amount of direction, do you just alienate and frustrate your audience?
The audience that wants more games like Her Story has to be super niche.
I know this goes into those completion percentage discussions, but is a game design good if it challenges 5% of your audience and frustrates the rest?
The audience that wants more games like Her Story has to be super niche.
I know this goes into those completion percentage discussions, but is a game design good if it challenges 5% of your audience and frustrates the rest?
UnemployedVillain
Member
I'll give it a watch, but how are there no Broken Sword games in the list?!
Abilidebob
Member
GMTK, EFAP and CaptainKristian are THE channels that when I see they uploaded a new video I have to watch it, no matter how tired I am. Love their voices and video editing.
I thought that with Patreon he'd upload videos faster, but reality isn't that nice.
More_Badass
Member
Most definitely. That's why you wouldn't make it a game for everyone, it would be very niche much like Her Story.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
Should I watch Mystic River? I don't care about Kevin Beacon, but I like Laurence Fishburne, but from the clips he just seems like the sidekick.
semiconscious
Member
well, pretty much like any sherlock holmes story, you basically assemble all your evidence, & use it while questioning those involved to detect contradictions & come to conclusions. so, yeah, each case's a 'puzzle', & it's solution is determining 'who dunnit?'
...of all the mystery/detective games i've played, the ace attorney games have, for me, been the most consistently high-quality/satisfying. the fact that they're extremely funny, as well, is pretty amazing...
Her Story is absolutely the best detective game I've played, so full marks there. The praise for Contradiction, Ace Attorney, Blackwell, and Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective was also great to see. I expected to see The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker show up at some point; oh well.
Towards the end, when he was discussing ways to have the player demonstrate their overall understanding of the case, I was expecting a mention of Danganronpa's Climax Logic. It's similar to the timeline stuff he mentions, but more complex, as you not only have to identify when things happened, but also what happened and to whom. It's a bit too directed some of the time (it gives both questions and multiple-choice answers, though you do have a whole bunch to sift through), but I think it worked quite well overall.
This is a major challenge from the developer's point of view, for sure. But to look at it from magical christmas land where no one needs to work to eat, I don't think that limited appeal is necessarily a bad thing -- plenty of the world's greatest art is of extremely limited interest to the general population. Even for folks who are way into art, most are only into a limited range of the arts. That's why, when making aesthetic judgements, I think it's best to ignore the issue of mass appeal, and embrace the complete subjectivity inherent in taste.
Mark Brown definitely approaches his videos this way, and in so doing, he produces some of the internet's best game criticism. Devs that produced games the same way might starve, but they'd probably make great games in the process!
Towards the end, when he was discussing ways to have the player demonstrate their overall understanding of the case, I was expecting a mention of Danganronpa's Climax Logic. It's similar to the timeline stuff he mentions, but more complex, as you not only have to identify when things happened, but also what happened and to whom. It's a bit too directed some of the time (it gives both questions and multiple-choice answers, though you do have a whole bunch to sift through), but I think it worked quite well overall.
This is a major challenge from the developer's point of view, for sure. But to look at it from magical christmas land where no one needs to work to eat, I don't think that limited appeal is necessarily a bad thing -- plenty of the world's greatest art is of extremely limited interest to the general population. Even for folks who are way into art, most are only into a limited range of the arts. That's why, when making aesthetic judgements, I think it's best to ignore the issue of mass appeal, and embrace the complete subjectivity inherent in taste.
Mark Brown definitely approaches his videos this way, and in so doing, he produces some of the internet's best game criticism. Devs that produced games the same way might starve, but they'd probably make great games in the process!
Weltall Zero
Member
Actually the movie is mostly about Bacon, Sean Penn and Tim Robbins. It is an amazing movie and I'm not even a huge fan of detective movies; the murder case is only half of the movie's plot, if that. You should really watch it.
Riposte
Member
One thing that sets apart Ace Attorney (and games like it) from other more complex, open-ended detective games is that there's a stronger component of tension. You are not just finding stuff out, you are trying to save your client in a fairly desperate situation, and this feeling is communicated with a punishment system (in addition to how it limits guessing, as said in the video). That tension is completely diminished (and you can guess away) if you use/abuse save and quit as saves (or don't refuse the features built into the recent games), which I think is how most people play them.
I would say AA is more of an "adventure" game, because it follows pretty close to model of point and click adventure games (exploring, collecting clues, etc. is a sequence of interconnected problems to solve rather than separate examples of a mechanic).
I would say AA is more of an "adventure" game, because it follows pretty close to model of point and click adventure games (exploring, collecting clues, etc. is a sequence of interconnected problems to solve rather than separate examples of a mechanic).
Nocturnowl
Member
Cool video, as expected from Brown.
Showcased a number of neat mechanics I'd never seen as well as highlighting games I should probably tackle.
But it brought back my game groups (loving) gripes with the Sherlock Holmes consulting detective board game, damn it Sherlock, you just always knew where to go from the start, how are we ever supposed to beat your score huh?!
Showcased a number of neat mechanics I'd never seen as well as highlighting games I should probably tackle.
But it brought back my game groups (loving) gripes with the Sherlock Holmes consulting detective board game, damn it Sherlock, you just always knew where to go from the start, how are we ever supposed to beat your score huh?!
Messofanego
Banned
I never saw the Broken Sword games to be about detective work. You find out clues and figure out puzzles, but it's not like you're usually doing the other steps as shown in the video. Still some of my favourites, though!
Nothing on any of the Carmen games? Well their dependence on real world facts at the time of their making does hinder them coming back to them and entire countries have changed the set up of giving you free reign to put the clues together yourself and letting you get them wrong make them the finest detective games ever made in my book.
Any discussion of detective games without them is like an in-depth look at platformers that acts like Donkey Kong and Super Mario never existed.
Any discussion of detective games without them is like an in-depth look at platformers that acts like Donkey Kong and Super Mario never existed.
Hot Coldman
Banned
Just finished watching this. I love Mark has gotten to the point where when he chooses to tackle a certain genre or style of game, he looks it at from what feels like every possible relevant interpretation - here we see L.A. Noire, the Telltale games, Wadjet Eye, old FMV mysteries, new FMV mysteries, detective sidequest crap in AAA games, stuff I've never heard of, and of course the grandaddy of them all Ace Attorey. The idea that plenty of them have gotten things right, just not everything at once (besides possibly Wadjet Eye, whose games I really need to play more of) is fascinating, I think Mark's at his best when he's uncovering major design challenges, what makes them some tricky, and offering a number of possible paths to success.
This was up there with his Soulslike video for me. Bonus points for the use of Last Window music.
This was up there with his Soulslike video for me. Bonus points for the use of Last Window music.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Ace Attorney, hands down, does the best job with the "piecing together the clues into an ah-ha moment" which is the hardest thing to pull off
Unlike the rest of you i find this video disappointing, usually GMT deeply analizes game mechanics and tells why they work or why they don't, what are all the consequences of a design choice, why all games should have some feature and so on, this video on the other hand sounds more like a wishlist, it's nice to want things but there's a reason why big games don't leave everything in the hand of players, they need to appeal to a wide audience hence those games can't be too obscure and complex, honestly i was expecting from the video some kind of solution or compromise.
When i watch GMT videos i always learn something new and sometimes my mind is blown too, but nothing said in the video sounded to me particulary new or smart or whatever unlike all the other videos,
One last thing there's the big omission of Danganronpa games(in V3 not only you expose lies but you can lie too! Also the so hated minigames are the abstraction of the main character's process of deduction, something no other games do, we can discuss about minigames quality but not about the idea itself) and Carmen Sandiego games(too geography focused but cases' solution usually rely on player's intuition and knowledge, there isn't much hand holding).
I'm grateful to the video though because now i have a big ist of games to keep an eye on lol.
When i watch GMT videos i always learn something new and sometimes my mind is blown too, but nothing said in the video sounded to me particulary new or smart or whatever unlike all the other videos,
One last thing there's the big omission of Danganronpa games(in V3 not only you expose lies but you can lie too! Also the so hated minigames are the abstraction of the main character's process of deduction, something no other games do, we can discuss about minigames quality but not about the idea itself) and Carmen Sandiego games(too geography focused but cases' solution usually rely on player's intuition and knowledge, there isn't much hand holding).
I'm grateful to the video though because now i have a big ist of games to keep an eye on lol.
JonnyDBrit
Member
I think part of it this is that with the framing of the the court case, almost every time you press a statement, or present a piece of evidence, you move the case along with that particular train of thought, which doesn't necessarily solve a relevant answer. It's possible to get as swept up in that as much as the characters do, until at last the prosecution or witness will ask,
"Okay, but what does that have to do with the case?"
Which prompts you to think about what exactly all that new information you just gathered might possibly mean. This is where Phoenix or Apollo regularly blow the doors wide open on a case, turning those seemingly curious but 'useless' factoids into the most vital evidence that re-contextualise, at times, the very nature of the crime itself.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
Does danganronpa not count?
I actually really like the way the truth bullet system is used to handle cases.
I actually really like the way the truth bullet system is used to handle cases.
TheRazielim
Member
I don't find any detective game particularly compelling if you can't fuck up your final guess. It's like the main thing games as interactive narratives can do over traditional formats. If I just follow some sort of shitty detective vision markers, then it's bullshit.
It's like they always rob the climax of the genre from the player: putting all facts together to the best of my abilities and form a thesis who the killer is. Hell, I'd dare the game not TO reveal to you if you actually managed to fuck up, maybe only years down the line in-game world. Not knowing for sure is what can really elevate it forward, I think. You can't do it with fail states, otherwise people will just proceed with trial & error.
It's like they always rob the climax of the genre from the player: putting all facts together to the best of my abilities and form a thesis who the killer is. Hell, I'd dare the game not TO reveal to you if you actually managed to fuck up, maybe only years down the line in-game world. Not knowing for sure is what can really elevate it forward, I think. You can't do it with fail states, otherwise people will just proceed with trial & error.
Aizo
Banned
I miss your old avatar now.
Donniewahlberg
Banned
The giant bomb playthrough of Contradiction is a really great watch, if you're into that kind of thing.
No Danganronpa
He's a supporting actor, but that movie does own lol
Also see Gone Baby Gone. Based on a book by the same author as MR and very good.
matrix-cat
Member
Great video. I'd already played a lot of those games (totally agree with his sentiments about Her Story and the Blackwell series, The Shivah and other Wadjet Eye adventure games), but I have a few more to add to my list now.