Can I have a tip on how to start investigating?

[Cat]

I'm not sure where to even begin investigating the murder, can anyone give me an idea of where to start? Aside from knowing it's poison I don't know who or what to investigate to start gathering clues and building a case.

[hanchan]

If you've reached that part of the story, you should be able to put together a theory about the murder in the Build a Story minigame in your attic, and take it to other characters to talk about. It doesn't matter if it contains unknowns, you'll fill it in with their help.

Signposting this is something else we're currently working on! Thanks for playing!

[Cat]

Yeah my problem is more so where to even start with that, but I'll give it a try. Just unsure where to even begin or who to slot in to start questioning people.

[Smaragdina]

I'd been wanting to make a similar thread. Thanks to the devs for an explanation -- but this approach feels UTTERLY BACKWARDS to me.

I spent my entire first playthrough milling about in confusion TRYING to investigate the murder and failing. I was doing random tasks for witnesses in the hopes that I might stumble upon some evidence. As the trial ticked closer and my housemates and seemingly the game itself criticized me for not finding any information, I grew super dismayed and frustrated. I WAS trying. I had no idea how else to gather evidence beyond talking to people. I had no idea I was meant to put together a half-baked theory without investigating. If you're building a case, shouldn't you investigate before jumping to conclusions? Especially because I was told to bring the theory to Harjit -- why would I ever present the law with a theory I KNEW was wrong and full of holes? the prompt to bring the theory to Harjit makes it sounds like I'm meant to bring him a relatively finished, ironclad case, not a nascent theory that I still need to noodle on.

I also never turned in any gossip about the Masters to Archie for this same reason. The game told me create crackpot, lurid, incendiary theories; but the only building blocks I had were tame and harmless. I kept waiting, confused, for more story elements that never came.

I'd imagine there are a lot more people feeling this way.

An aside: part of this is due to the fact that the game currently seems to punish you for "finishing" more than one draft of a story.

I created multiple drafts of someone's story -- I wanted to see what each version was called and get the full flavor text -- but when I went to turn the story in, I couldn't choose which one to use. The game seemingly chose at random (it wasn't the first OR last version I'd created) and ended up picking an option that angered the subject and (maybe? seemingly?) closed off their romance/quest line. Not sure if this is a bug or a design choice, but it feels AWFUL and actively discourages me from using stories in the way they're apparently intended.

[Taear]

Absolutely the same experience for me Smaragdina, I don't really like the way the story system works at all

[JSNLV]

I'll also admit confusion about the way stories work. (Slight spoilers follow.) The tutorial felt straightforward, but the invitation to construct stories of menace about the Masters felt too much like I was taking a side, and since I was more interested in seeing how the Griz/Pages dynamic played out, I didn't try passing any stories to Archie.

Then the arrest happened, and I gained the ability to make theories about the murder. It occurred to me that I should have been passing stories along to get used to the system, but when I tried to visit Archie, the prompt about clothing and needing to travel with Harjit was initially a deterrent: I keep saying I shouldn't go without Harjit, but is he actually going to come along from here if I wear this? Am I supposed to find him in the streets before trying to visit the H.M.S. Ungulate? Perhaps I should just try talking to someone else, for the moment.

While I'd made a couple of stories already, I didn't start really playing with the system until I was invited to help develop Rachel's plots. The little pop-up whenever you complete a new story is very satisfying, and seeing the list of titles in my journal made me want to put together as many options as I could. It seemed like you'd only present one story: fair enough. But I couldn't tell whether I was presenting the story as it was when I completed it or as it was when I saved and exited from story interface.

After wasting a bunch of in-game time bringing stories to Rachel, I tried to return to the murder investigation. However, the invitation to present incomplete theories to ask about the murder gave me pause: does this mean "incomplete" as in I haven't filled every slot in the chart, or am I supposed to use the "unknown person" or "unknown motive" options to specify which aspect of the murder I'm trying to ask about? I thought the latter scenario was more likely based on one of the story titles I completed, but then sometimes using the unknown motive will cause the story summary to imply that the person in question had an unknowable motive; that trying to guess a motive is pointless because of their inhuman ways of thinking. This makes me less certain about my conclusion about how I'm meant to be building these theories.

I came to the forums today hoping others had a better grasp on how this all works.

[PugForce]

Originally posted by hanchan:

If you've reached that part of the story, you should be able to put together a theory about the murder in the Build a Story minigame in your attic, and take it to other characters to talk about. It doesn't matter if it contains unknowns, you'll fill it in with their help.

Signposting this is something else we're currently working on! Thanks for playing!

I was able to make the story but never got to ask any of the other characters about it. It wasn't even a listed option that I recall.

Unfortunately it seems really easy to choose something when chatting and bam the convo goes down a route and ends and you never get to ask about other possible topics.

[luke.alford]

I ran into these sort of issues myself, but I'm not sure if it's just that my stories were incoherent. Ocassional I'd get a pop up telling me I'd unlocked a story (like a character meddling, or an intentional crime) but I was never quite clear whether this was a marker to tell me that 'This is a theory you can test' and I should immediately rush off to ask someone about it or whether this was an option I'd unlocked and I should aim to unlock all of them before I started interviewing people, so that I didn't have to go back again. Since there are so many different possible combinations, I lost track pretty quickly of what I had checked and hadn't.
I'm not the best at mysteries but I found the system a little hard to follow in terms of how I was supposed to interact with it. Especially given the sheer number of fields to play with in the murder mystery.

[Russet]

I got nowhere with the murder mystery.
None of it made sense, like... I'm supposed to just randomly come up with a theory and take it to the policeman?

Like....
WHY WOULD I DO THIS

I was talking to people and expecting to investigate the murder and get information off people and slowly put a solution together to present to Harjit. Not just wander up to him like a madman spouting nonsense.

I got nowhere and was constantly running out of days and times to talk to people expecting there to be a murder to investigate not just crazy theories I was supposed to go present.

[Smaragdina]

Originally posted by JSNLV:

the invitation to present incomplete theories to ask about the murder gave me pause: does this mean "incomplete" as in I haven't filled every slot in the chart, or am I supposed to use the "unknown person" or "unknown motive" options to specify which aspect of the murder I'm trying to ask about? I thought the latter scenario was more likely based on one of the story titles I completed, but then sometimes using the unknown motive will cause the story summary to imply that the person in question had an unknowable motive; that trying to guess a motive is pointless because of their inhuman ways of thinking. This makes me less certain about my conclusion about how I'm meant to be building these theories.

I shared this same confusion. I read "incomplete" as, well, INCOMPLETE: not having all boxes filled in. I was then hopelessly confused when I partially completed a story and still didn't see any options to investigate about it.

And I agree that the "unknown motive" flavor text needs revising. For example, I suspected that Phoebe might have been an accomplice -- but when I put down "unknown motive" the flavor text told me "Phoebe did not think as humans do," which wasn't what I meant at ALL. However, sometimes the flavor text DOES describe "unknown motive" as "motives were unknown." Why the inconsistency? Could we have TWO options to differentiate between "unknown motive" (ie, "I have no idea, I need more information") and "unknowable motive" (ie, "lol idk nonhumans are weird Cthulhu fthagan"), perhaps?

(Also, currently feeling REALLY limited by the need to come up with one, singular, perfect story to bring to Harjit. In my latest playthrough, I discovered SO many possible cuprits and motivations that there was absolutely no way a normal court confronted with all the evidence could prove Archie guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; but a normal court would have ALL the evidence, not just one theory with one locked-in set of parameters. The whole murder mystery and trial feels way, way, WAY too "game-y" to be fun rn)

[Rae]

I actually never figured how out how to ask anyone about Archie's murder case and I just got side tracked to random chat options. I feel like it can be a romance sim or murder mystery but the combination of both is a pretty mediocre experience overall. I did unlock many side quests that went nowhere and even when I tried to hand in stories to Rachel she rejected all of them each time.

Mostly I spoke to as many people possible and unlocked the different locations yet I still had no real idea how to make any progress in the murder investigation until the end.

[katrinemyra]

I actually quite like the story system, but I completely agree it's hard to figure out how to use it. From what I've been able to figure out, your current story (the one you've most recently completed), affects what you can talk to people about. So for example, if you've made a story in which Rachel is the murderer, this gives you the option to interview certain other characters about her potential guilt. If you've made a story in which a specific murder method is used, you gain the option of interviewing people about that murder method - and so on. I really like this mechanic, but it took me a while to figure out.

My main issue is that with the current pacing, it's (virtually?) impossible to solve the murder through this method. You simply don't have enough time for the required trial and error.

(All that said, I adore the game, and I'm looking forward to future updates - I know they're working on the pacing...)

[Smaragdina]

I just want to jump in and say that for me, the last patch (adding some clarity to the instructions about storycrafting and doubling the number of days) makes things feel SO much better. I'm sure there will be further tweaks down the line but this is a huge huge improvement, thanks to the devs for listening.

[PugForce]

Originally posted by Smaragdina:

I just want to jump in and say that for me, the last patch (adding some clarity to the instructions about storycrafting and doubling the number of days) makes things feel SO much better. I'm sure there will be further tweaks down the line but this is a huge huge improvement, thanks to the devs for listening.

Are you able to start investigating? I can make the story but I can't show it to Harjit. I know they planned to add unlimited chances to show him a theory but I am not getting the option.

[Sly_Boots]

Originally posted by PugForce:

Originally posted by Smaragdina:

I just want to jump in and say that for me, the last patch (adding some clarity to the instructions about storycrafting and doubling the number of days) makes things feel SO much better. I'm sure there will be further tweaks down the line but this is a huge huge improvement, thanks to the devs for listening.

Are you able to start investigating? I can make the story but I can't show it to Harjit. I know they planned to add unlimited chances to show him a theory but I am not getting the option.

You kind of have to keep playing with the story elements until it triggers a bell sound and a title for the theory (something like "Pages, Unknown"). You should then be able to speak to Harjit and others about it.

[i am the muffin]

i'm interested in this game but for whatever reason this particular thread has me concerned about purchasing. are there any newer players who feel like this aspect of the game is resolved, or at least been improved somewhat? idk it just sounds really messy :/