What does the Character know?-Mystery Investigation Process

I've pondered what each of my characters knows for a long time before writing any dialogue with that character. Too many games, books, and movies, have given the impression that the character is omnipotent and is going to, no matter how they fudge up the investigation, catch the bad guy and still be a genius.

I follow the example of Agatha Christie: if it hasn't been put in the evidence of the text, it's not a clue, and the main character [MC] can't know it about the bad guy. It can be deduced from a reasonable related piece of evidence, but cannot be obscured absolutely from the reader/player.

That being said, I'm stuck with a difficult task in Blackout.

{I discovered flags (thankfully) early in my coding experience, when I wandered about the forums absorbing information like a sponge. I actually printed out certain pages of threads about important things, such as flags, variables, and menus. It's kind of embarrassing now when I look back; however, it sure worked, as I'm now fairly proficient with the basics of Ren'Py and I'm staying afloat in Java!}

I'm using flags extensively to make "clue_WHATEVER-seen = False" or "knowWHODUNNIT_ar = False" then flag it as true when seen (therefore adding it to the character's knowledge.) The character will ponder this information at set times (where a whole hidden list of clues will process and anything flagged true will be shown to the reader; anything flagged false will not; leaving the reader to make their own decisions with the true knowledge of the character.)

Yes, the accuracy of this depends on what I write into each scene and remembering to insert it later into a logical inner monologue; I'm sure I'm going to end up with plenty of branching paths where the character knows one thing but not another and dies; or knows the right clue to cue a certain confrontation or certain inner "aha!" thought dialogue. If need be I'm going to simplify the dialogue a little at the end.

Still, I'd rather accept this challenge! I'm writing this game and coding as a lover of mysteries. I feel that many mysteries are cop-outs because they do not challenge the reader/player to rely on their investigation without deviating from a scripted, "complete x y z task like an errand runner and catch bad guy" routine. I'd rather make the game more challenging and immersive at the basic level, and allow players to choose whether or not to follow strategy guides if they need it.

As a side note, I'm frustrated at the Mary-Sue and Marty-Stu-ness of most mystery investigators. Nancy Drew is about as Mary-Sue as they come, in my opinion. I've set my main character apart by giving her a major weakness, as you'll see on the Blackout game page.

I simply believe that in order to set a game apart, you have to set the bar higher.

Anyways, when I began the writing process, after creating my characters, I created a wheel that demonstrates the relationships.

---Dotted lines happen to represent blood relatives

It's not beautiful, and it's changed a lot since this picture was snapped, but it gave me a starting idea of how the characters interact and share history with one another. Alongside that, I developed a character bio and personality for each character. I tried to cover a variety of personalities and social roles, as well as some diversity within the upper-class context of the private college setting (such as the poor cousin, the rags-to-riches jock, the boy on scholarship, the greek heritage girl with foreign parents on scholarship, and the hates-being-filthy-rich host).

This led me next to make a chart- one page per each character, so 9 pages total- that focused on a character and drew lines to knowledge about each other character. I outlined what the particular character did know or think about each other character, then made notes about what they didn't know or what they would learn in the game (some special cases needed conditionals depending on the MC's choices, too!). I probably could have just listed it instead of drawing a bunch of wobbly lines across the page, but sometimes I'm more of a visual learner.

The last part was to start actually writing the dialogue options between characters. For example, we'll take what happens when the MC chooses to help Curtis:

**Curtis' knowledge: He knows a little or a lot about all of his guests- except you. Will ask you pointed questions. They will make your MC a bit uncomfortable. [Different results for whether or not you answer truthfully about your medical condition}

**You have the option with him to ask about any other character. Whether or not he will answer (or even answer truthfully) is up to him. Remember, everything in life is biased and/or subjective!

**There is a limit to how much you can ask before you are done helping each character carry their stuff in. You won't be able to ask about everyone, so you have a limit to the starting information you will have. Choose wisely! Some choices might make the character break off the conversation abruptly if you touch on a subject they are trying to avoid...

**Certain lines of conversation will add affection/romance points. This is a nice little bonus if you want to romance Curtis.

**There are helpful hints about other characters' relationships, not just their relationships to Curtis (or whichever character you help), in the dialogue. This may save your life or help you immensely! Gossip is useful if it is true.

That's the process I've used (and am still using- I've only written 2 characters fully in the introduciton so far due to the hefty amount of alternate dialogues and background story creation). The writing is peppered with sticky notes with flag names scribbled and marked where I will add them in; notes regarding where affection points and conversation points will be tracked; and complicated boxes drawn showing where the lines of conversation start, end, and deviate based upon flags or points (variables). There may be some alternate ways of doing this; I prefer using a combination of flags and variables to keep the complex story script and coding neat. (BTW! "Sticky notes saved my life" is going to be one of my future blog post topics :)

At any rate, my first demo upload, set to be released on Halloween, 2015, will demonstrate the choices the player must make to determine the starting knowledge of the main character and explore the variable usefulness of different lines of conversation with different characters. There is no true "right choice" for the choice you make in the beginning; however, several characters are more useful and a few are less useful.

Knowledge is power.

#Blackout #Character #Mystery #Investigation #flags #development #writing