I'm sure this has been asked but...

[The Former]

Is the living world going to extend to cases, or are the cases scripted?

[ButterLettuce]

There is a setting in the gameplay options to enable procedural murders

[The Former]

Excellent. Then this is gonna be one heck of a game indeed!

[sean.campbell]

Yeah the idea is that the introductory case is pretty much the only "Crafted" murder case and then after that everything will be procedurally generated and even with the crafted murder case it is a bit different every time with the different cities and suspects.

[Zothen]

Originally posted by sean.campbell:

Yeah the idea is that the introductory case is pretty much the only "Crafted" murder case and then after that everything will be procedurally generated and even with the crafted murder case it is a bit different every time with the different cities and suspects.

Thanks for sharing some more info, but it seems still a bit vage to me.

How will following cases differ from the current scripted/crafted initial case? The template of that tutorial case is hardscripted - the culprit is always the same role - just persons, locations get randomized.

2 years ago Cole shared a video about creating scripted missions in a procedural enviroment, which leads to the understanding/expectations that all main missions will be "scripted" that way?

Or are we talking about real randomized cases? (after all, "procedurally generated" from a fixed seed does not actually mean "randomized" at the same time.)

Is it the intend to create randomized Whodunits or rather predesigned "templates" filled with randomized content?

[Grey-fox-13]

Originally posted by sean.campbell:

Yeah the idea is that the introductory case is pretty much the only "Crafted" murder case and then after that everything will be procedurally generated and even with the crafted murder case it is a bit different every time with the different cities and suspects.

I certainly hope it won't be the only "Crafted" one, as neat as procedural generation can be for replayability, having something hand crafted can introduce a lot more depth and twists to a story forcing things that would be too unreliable to generate. If anything I hope that someday you give players the tools to craft these cases themselves. If it's not planned yet obviously not on release but maybe patched in someday. Adding workshop support would give the game A LOT more content and this type of sandbox is just perfect for the kind of people who make workshop content.

[jakinbandw]

I can confirm that there are procedurally generated mysteries. They just have less clues to go on from what I can tell. I managed to solve one in the demo, but rather than the cool hints with the receipt and all that, I had to go off of fingerprints I found on the door.

Then I went to the workplace and managed to find a coworker with matching prints, who was confirmed by the turn in to be the killer. Still haven't figured out how to find the murder weapon from the initial murder :/.

[mujie]

Originally posted by jakinbandw:

I can confirm that there are procedurally generated mysteries. They just have less clues to go on from what I can tell. I managed to solve one in the demo, but rather than the cool hints with the receipt and all that, I had to go off of fingerprints I found on the door.

Then I went to the workplace and managed to find a coworker with matching prints, who was confirmed by the turn in to be the killer. Still haven't figured out how to find the murder weapon from the initial murder :/.

I haven't played the demo yet. Are you able to do unlimited procedural cases or?

[Zothen]

Originally posted by mujie:

I haven't played the demo yet. Are you able to do unlimited procedural cases or?

If you mean "randomized" then no. The tutorial/main mission follows a scripted template and randomizes just persons on locations (the "template" defines the role of the culprits).
Then theres randomized side jobs, low complexity one offs - steal, smear, smash, arrest.. stuff like that.

[Zothen]

Originally posted by jakinbandw:

I can confirm that there are procedurally generated mysteries.

Im curious how you confirmed that, because I turned the whole demo upside down multiple times and havent found any "randomly generated" mysteries yet.

The main murder mystery (tutorial/main case) is following the same template but randomizes the participants and locations - the plot and solutions is always the same.

[jakinbandw]

Originally posted by mujie:

Originally posted by jakinbandw:

I can confirm that there are procedurally generated mysteries. They just have less clues to go on from what I can tell. I managed to solve one in the demo, but rather than the cool hints with the receipt and all that, I had to go off of fingerprints I found on the door.

Then I went to the workplace and managed to find a coworker with matching prints, who was confirmed by the turn in to be the killer. Still haven't figured out how to find the murder weapon from the initial murder :/.

I haven't played the demo yet. Are you able to do unlimited procedural cases or?

Assuming you can do them in the 90 minutes the game gives you!

[jakinbandw]

Originally posted by Zothen:

Originally posted by jakinbandw:

I can confirm that there are procedurally generated mysteries.

Im curious how you confirmed that, because I turned the whole demo upside down multiple times and havent found any "randomly generated" mysteries yet.

The main murder mystery (tutorial/main case) is following the same template but randomizes the participants and locations - the plot and solutions is always the same.

In this specific save, this is a screenshot of the popup I get:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2002449096838889931/8958BD8E7A0E076CB4A8A225D1446E500692B30B/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

And here it says 'Case Opened': https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2002449096838890203/4B68E747F7FA02155339BD74A112DD52818A50E8/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

[Zothen]

Wow! Thanks for the info!
No clue why I havent seen those yet, even when I had 30mins+ time left.

But it still has to be proven that the main murder mysteries are indeed randomized and not rather templates that are just randomizing its content as is the first tutorial mission.

I havent found a single instance where Cole ever mentioned such and Sean is just a PR-guy from the publisher and not an actual developer for the game.

[jakinbandw]

Originally posted by Zothen:

But it still has to be proven that the main murder mysteries are indeed randomized and not rather templates that are just randomizing its content as is the first tutorial mission.

No problem! Did you get your room and customize it? I always do that before I go out and explore just so there is no starter quest left.

Second: I'm not sure what you mean in the quoted text.

[Zothen]

Originally posted by jakinbandw:

Second: I'm not sure what you mean in the quoted text.

What I mean is that the murder mysteries are not randomly generated. They are always the same "template", the same case. Just the persons and locations are randomly decided. Like the same Agatha Christie story, just played by different actors.

So when theres a case with a lady, a gardener and a butler Cole scripts what happend and who is the actual culprit (lets say its the gardnener). The game just picks fitting spots in different cities and different persons for the roles in the murder mystery script.

So if you solved the murder mystery once you will always know in which role the culprit is. Its not the butler now, the gardener in another run or somebody else entirely.
No real, new surprises on different runs and rather low replayabilty.

Cole explained that a while ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjCKKHkhakY

[Zothen]

Originally posted by jakinbandw:

No problem! Did you get your room and customize it? I always do that before I go out and explore just so there is no starter quest left.

Yes, living in a basement. Think everything was done and ~40mins left.
Probably a good reason to do another run, hehe!