The game is so so so fun, honestly. I have been looking for a really good detective game and this was honestly it. I am so close to completing the whole thing but keep getting stuck in a frustratingly simple place. I have 27 pieces of evidence and somehow still missing one motivation card... the feud between William Vance and James Bell (the last piece to completing the who's who puzzle). Thanks for making this game!
Thanks very much for playing and for the positive feedback! You need to look for that in the Silverwater county archives (there is a specific app for that in your in-game screen). Please let me know if you have trouble :)
A minor suggestion. The search keyword "Deep blue" for obtaining the Robber's sentnce is very unintuitive. It is clear what I am looking for so I used rather "Robber sentence", "Robber court",...
Yes, this is a known issue. Sometimes it seems to be related to the base resolution of the game and sometimes it seems to be related to the internet browser. If you can, maybe try to play it on a larger monitor for better results. Sorry.
Really good concept, i felt it was held back by its execution. The biggest problem for me was the way you find new clues through the search engine. Having it be 2 words most of the time instead of one, made it feel really random what the game actually wanted from me. A lot of times i felt like i wanted to know about something, but it just gave me nothing. I would recommend looking at "roottrees are dead" for inspiration on how to make a search engine better, i think its a really tough task though. The biggest problem for me where the phone calls, they just all seemed really unhelpful and only responded to really specific things.
A bit more feedback on wrong answers would've been really nice, right now you can't even tell if you entered something, since there is no feedback.
As for the plot, a big thing that made it feel unsatisfying at the end, was the fact that the twist of there being a mobster who killed evelyn just came out of nowhere, i think it would feel better if every character is established early, with multiple being plausible for who would've done it, and in the midgame some evidence being revealed, that makes other candidates more/less likely, so you need to rethink who you thought it was.
The way it is now it felt really more like, there was no way of knowing this before finding the right documents, so it felt more like exploration rather than deduction. Also that Hargrove had a gambling problem is the same, the motivation just felt like it came out of nowhere. From the Podcast you knew someone was in debt, but i felt like there needed to be multiple candidates, the way it is now, hargrove was the only plausible choice.
Thanks very much for taking the time to play and comment. This was my first attempt at a mystery game, so naturally there are some flaws. You may wish to try Dead girl trending, a similar game where I tried to improve the gameplay. You may find it more satisfying. :)
James Bell, owner of Bell Farm, had a dispute with William Vance, owner of the Vance Estate, over property boundaries. The Silverlake Court ruled in favor of Bell Farm on June 23, 1962. Soon after, James Belldisinherited his daughter Betty Bell upon finding out she had become secretly engaged to William Vance’s son. Lisa Bell then became sole heiress to Bell Farm.
Fun game! I did kinda spoil the story for myself by logically filling in the blanks in the podcast mentally, but I still needed to gather the evidence that would give the right keywords to complete the podcast.
Thanks for your comment.I just checked and there seems to be no problem. Both the browser and downloadable versions work fine on two different computers. Which version are you using? If it's the browser version, maybe the game is opened on a different window?
This is happening to me as well. It's the browser version, I've checked all my windows as well and nothing is open. Figured I would reply letting you know it's not just one person (:
Thanks very much for posting. I cannot replicate the problem, but it's good to know it only happemns in the browser version. Do you have any pop up blockers enabled? Which browser do you use? For me it seems to work ok on Firefox and Chrome.
I don't have any ad blockers and I'm using Chrome for it. I play on here at work so I use incognito mode but besides that nothing seems off. Of course, no problem for posting just wanting to make sure its known (:
Thanks very much for giving me some more feedback. I'm trying to reproduce the problem in order to fix it. IDK, maybe it has to do with the incognito mode. For the time being, the downloadable version should work fine. :)
(and im pretty sure its supposed to be ricin, in the "[x], derivative of castor oil" spot. alas. i do not know what to google for it to show up. i thought the book would have been enough. also, sid carvers name just appeared in my podcast notes and i have no idea how it got there) cool game tho, very "roottrees"-core
Wow! That's pretty good already! It's hard to tell what kind of hints you need because the game is designed for you to discover them in a non-linear way. I can only help based on what I think is harder to find out. Spoilers ahoy:
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- You already have all six telephone contacts. The 'Who is who' is optional. In theory you can complete the podcast while missing one or two names/portraits. But you should end up collecting them all anyway.
- Did you get the post office document? It seems Hargrove goes by other names. Maybe this can help you get his police file?
- Avery knows a fair bit about Hargrove's relation with Evelyn.
Thank you for the response - it helped and I got it! :)
Useful to know about the phone contacts - thought I was missing one so had been spending ages trying to get it XD
The police files were definitely the sticking point - I thought I needed a full name for D and had tried asking full names without luck. Turns out I needed to put 'file' at the end *doh*
All in all a wonderful game with just enough twists and subplots to really get my teeth into without it feeling super unfair :D
I'm really glad you enjoyed it! It's the first game of this kind I make, and I would like to make more, so feedback is more than welcome. Thanks very much for trusting the game enough to play it all the way!
It's hard for me to gauge whether the game is responsive enough to player searches (i.e. whether there are sufficient answers to searches or not), but the fact that you finished it leads me to think it's not too far off the mark. :)
I find this game really challenging and interesting! I love the mechanics and the story so far. To be honest, I am waiting for some clues or someone uploading the full game cuz im stuck ahahah
So far I have 12 evidence pieces on the board and more than 20 successful searches and I still feel like I made little to no progress ahaha
I'm still willing to read trough everything again and again to make sure I get this right tho ahaha
If you found 12 evidence pieces you're doing well for yourself! :) :) :)
A couple of hints (scroll down for spoilers -- please tell me if you know how to use a spoiler tag in this chat):
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Are you calling people on the phone? The priest at St. Michael's is worth talking to. You can find his number by looking for "St. Michael's parish" in the Herald's search engine.
Some of the people who took part in the case are still alive.
There are 30 pieces of evidence, but you do not need them all to solve the case.
Feel free to ask for more if you already knew these. :)
Okay update : YAY! I just finished the game and WOW!
First of all, thank you for answering so quick! It definately helped.
The who's who section was a bit tricky but since it was not mendatory, I don't have anything else to say about it ahaha. I've had maybe one or two instances where one or two contacts appeared/disappeared but it was a minor issue since you can quiclky get them back.
Thanks again for the game, amazing story and cool plot twists!
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Comments
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The game is so so so fun, honestly. I have been looking for a really good detective game and this was honestly it. I am so close to completing the whole thing but keep getting stuck in a frustratingly simple place. I have 27 pieces of evidence and somehow still missing one motivation card... the feud between William Vance and James Bell (the last piece to completing the who's who puzzle).
Thanks for making this game!
Thanks very much for playing and for the positive feedback! You need to look for that in the Silverwater county archives (there is a specific app for that in your in-game screen). Please let me know if you have trouble :)
A minor suggestion. The search keyword "Deep blue" for obtaining the Robber's sentnce is very unintuitive.
It is clear what I am looking for so I used rather "Robber sentence", "Robber court",...
Agreed, thanks for pointing it out. I don't think I will go back to change the tutorial, but the point is taken for future games.
I dont know if it is because of my laptop but when I click run the game I only see Tessa's hair.
Yes, this is a known issue. Sometimes it seems to be related to the base resolution of the game and sometimes it seems to be related to the internet browser. If you can, maybe try to play it on a larger monitor for better results. Sorry.
okayy I'll try thanks <3
Really good concept, i felt it was held back by its execution. The biggest problem for me was the way you find new clues through the search engine. Having it be 2 words most of the time instead of one, made it feel really random what the game actually wanted from me. A lot of times i felt like i wanted to know about something, but it just gave me nothing. I would recommend looking at "roottrees are dead" for inspiration on how to make a search engine better, i think its a really tough task though. The biggest problem for me where the phone calls, they just all seemed really unhelpful and only responded to really specific things.
A bit more feedback on wrong answers would've been really nice, right now you can't even tell if you entered something, since there is no feedback.
As for the plot, a big thing that made it feel unsatisfying at the end, was the fact that the twist of there being a mobster who killed evelyn just came out of nowhere, i think it would feel better if every character is established early, with multiple being plausible for who would've done it, and in the midgame some evidence being revealed, that makes other candidates more/less likely, so you need to rethink who you thought it was.
The way it is now it felt really more like, there was no way of knowing this before finding the right documents, so it felt more like exploration rather than deduction. Also that Hargrove had a gambling problem is the same, the motivation just felt like it came out of nowhere. From the Podcast you knew someone was in debt, but i felt like there needed to be multiple candidates, the way it is now, hargrove was the only plausible choice.
Thanks very much for taking the time to play and comment. This was my first attempt at a mystery game, so naturally there are some flaws. You may wish to try Dead girl trending, a similar game where I tried to improve the gameplay. You may find it more satisfying. :)
Hell yea that was fun! Thank you for making this game :3 and hope you make another crime time podcast case!
Thanks very much for your comment! I'm working on some things. Stay tuned!
In the meantime you may want to check out Dead Girl Trending, also on itch. :)
lol i started to play that game right after this one and didnt realise it was by you too - have not finished it yet but so far enjoying the game!
From Podcast section, I'm missing only 2 clues (the yellow ones) and I can't seem to get it correct... What am I missing??
Spoilers!
What am I doing wrong?? 😭 I believe this paragraph is right!
I believe the date is wrong, but let me double-check. It's been a little while... :)
Please, thank you
This is what you should have:
SPOILER AHEAD
James Bell, owner of Bell Farm, had a dispute with William Vance, owner of the Vance Estate, over property boundaries. The Silverlake Court ruled in favor of Bell Farm on June 23, 1962. Soon after, James Bell disinherited his daughter Betty Bell upon finding out she had become secretly engaged to William Vance’s son. Lisa Bell then became sole heiress to Bell Farm.
Great game! I'm enjoying it a lot.
I found a few minor bugs I want to report. (spoiler)
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- The entry for Edward Peter Vance in St. Michael's Parish shows he was born in 1938 and married in 1935.
- When you call Avery Sinclair, the text read "You explain to Mr Howe".
- When I loaded a save, some phone contacts disappeared and new one (Lee Howe, Officer Wolfe) appeared without me calling them previously.
Thanks very much for posting! I'll get those fixed as soon as possible. None of them are game-breaking, so you can proceed freely. :)
Fun game! I did kinda spoil the story for myself by logically filling in the blanks in the podcast mentally, but I still needed to gather the evidence that would give the right keywords to complete the podcast.
Thanks very much for playing!
It won't proceed past this initial screen for me. Is there something I'm missing?
Thanks for your comment.I just checked and there seems to be no problem. Both the browser and downloadable versions work fine on two different computers. Which version are you using? If it's the browser version, maybe the game is opened on a different window?
This is happening to me as well. It's the browser version, I've checked all my windows as well and nothing is open. Figured I would reply letting you know it's not just one person (:
Thanks very much for posting. I cannot replicate the problem, but it's good to know it only happemns in the browser version. Do you have any pop up blockers enabled? Which browser do you use? For me it seems to work ok on Firefox and Chrome.
I don't have any ad blockers and I'm using Chrome for it. I play on here at work so I use incognito mode but besides that nothing seems off. Of course, no problem for posting just wanting to make sure its known (:
Thanks very much for giving me some more feedback. I'm trying to reproduce the problem in order to fix it. IDK, maybe it has to do with the incognito mode. For the time being, the downloadable version should work fine. :)
I just finished the game and all I have to say is that it was incredible. The story is captivating, it keeps us on our toes.
Some pieces of evidence are harder to find but you just have to go back to your successful searches.
L.H and A.S contacts kept disappearing everytime I opened the game. But I just closed it, opened it again and they reappeared.
Thank you so much for this experience!
Thanks very much to you for playing! Seeing that people enjoy this really encourages me to make more games.
Thanks also for pointing out that bug. I'll look into it. Thankfully it seems there is an easy workaround. :)
1 podcast word missing..
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(and im pretty sure its supposed to be ricin, in the "[x], derivative of castor oil" spot. alas. i do not know what to google for it to show up. i thought the book would have been enough. also, sid carvers name just appeared in my podcast notes and i have no idea how it got there) cool game tho, very "roottrees"-core
Yes, you're right. I can't remember off the top of my head, but maybe you get it from
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the conversation with Dr. Parker, from the Botanical Garden, once you've read the book.
Sid Carver's name shows up when you get Hargrove's file from the police. You can actually look him up on the newspaper. :)
Thanks very much for playing!
This game is great, also stuck quite a long way in. I have:
- 20 evidence pieces
- 6 contacts
- all podcast word options except 3
- 7 puzzle portraits, 9 names, and 4 motivation pics
Just can't figure out a way to get the final contact or access to the few specific docs I need!
Wow! That's pretty good already! It's hard to tell what kind of hints you need because the game is designed for you to discover them in a non-linear way. I can only help based on what I think is harder to find out. Spoilers ahoy:
...
...
...
...
...
- You already have all six telephone contacts. The 'Who is who' is optional. In theory you can complete the podcast while missing one or two names/portraits. But you should end up collecting them all anyway.
- Did you get the post office document? It seems Hargrove goes by other names. Maybe this can help you get his police file?
- Avery knows a fair bit about Hargrove's relation with Evelyn.
Feel free to ask if you need specific advice!
Thanks for playing!
Thank you for the response - it helped and I got it! :)
Useful to know about the phone contacts - thought I was missing one so had been spending ages trying to get it XD
The police files were definitely the sticking point - I thought I needed a full name for D and had tried asking full names without luck. Turns out I needed to put 'file' at the end *doh*
All in all a wonderful game with just enough twists and subplots to really get my teeth into without it feeling super unfair :D
I'm really glad you enjoyed it! It's the first game of this kind I make, and I would like to make more, so feedback is more than welcome. Thanks very much for trusting the game enough to play it all the way!
It's hard for me to gauge whether the game is responsive enough to player searches (i.e. whether there are sufficient answers to searches or not), but the fact that you finished it leads me to think it's not too far off the mark. :)
I find this game really challenging and interesting! I love the mechanics and the story so far. To be honest, I am waiting for some clues or someone uploading the full game cuz im stuck ahahah
So far I have 12 evidence pieces on the board and more than 20 successful searches and I still feel like I made little to no progress ahaha
I'm still willing to read trough everything again and again to make sure I get this right tho ahaha
Good game :) thank you for putting it out!
If you found 12 evidence pieces you're doing well for yourself! :) :) :)
A couple of hints (scroll down for spoilers -- please tell me if you know how to use a spoiler tag in this chat):
...
...
...
...
...
Are you calling people on the phone? The priest at St. Michael's is worth talking to. You can find his number by looking for "St. Michael's parish" in the Herald's search engine.
Some of the people who took part in the case are still alive.
There are 30 pieces of evidence, but you do not need them all to solve the case.
Feel free to ask for more if you already knew these. :)
Okay update : YAY! I just finished the game and WOW!
First of all, thank you for answering so quick! It definately helped.
The who's who section was a bit tricky but since it was not mendatory, I don't have anything else to say about it ahaha. I've had maybe one or two instances where one or two contacts appeared/disappeared but it was a minor issue since you can quiclky get them back.
Thanks again for the game, amazing story and cool plot twists!
I'm really glad you liked it. :)
I have to look into those 1-2 contacts that disappear -- not sure why it happens. Fortunately nobody seems to be having trouble with that.
Thanks for playing!
The fill-in section is kind of indecipherable, since several of the boxes cover up the rest of the sentences.
Thanks for pointing it out! It seems this only happens on the browser version.
I think I got it fixed (sort of). Now it should be playable.
vou passar reto disso. que coisa horrível.
Did you finish the game in the end? :)
Was it fun?