I'm making a fun mystery video game for free download. I am in the writing stage and I need some good suggestions for clues to use in the game. (Encyclopedia Brown-esque)
Basically it's a bunch of still photos which you navigate through suspects' houses and the crime scene a la MYST. The suspects will answer your questions and give their side of the story. You must be able to find visual clues in the suspects' houses or in the crime scene that will contradict the suspects' story or places them at the scene of the crime.
Here are a few I've come up with for an example:
-Suspect claims he lives alone and no one has been in his house for months. But he's bald and you see a hairbrush on his bathroom counter.
-You see Suspect has a spot of white paint on their pants which leads you to believe he was the one who painted over the blood.
-Suspect claims that he is a devout Mormon, but he is drinking a can of soda which is strictly forbidden in the Mormon faith.
Any ideas??? I also need some clues that prove a few suspects WEREN'T involved (when they have been set up by the real culprit to look like they were).
Thanks! :)
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50,348 / 50,000
Jan 4, 2008 - 13 10
Have you seen the old series Can You Solve The Mystery? (I think that's the series name.) The two main characters were named Hawkeye and Amy. They're story-and-picture mysteries, on the level of Encyclopedia Brown. You have to see the clue in the picture to solve it. Also, for a science twist, look for the Einstein Anderson stories by Seymour Simon. Marvin Miller's got a lot of You Be the Judge and You Be the Detective books, on a little harder level.
I have to say, any clues I made up off the top of my head would probably be found in one of those books anyway. :) Or in one of the knock-off series. They all use the same sort of clues, just in different stories.
67,583 / 50,000
Mar 18, 2008 - 21 38
Warning: This could be totally stupid, but I wanted to see what I could come up with. (By the way, I've never read Encyclopedia Brown books, so I may not be making clues on the right level of difficulty. Sorry if none of this helps. But it's a fun mind-stretching excercise, so I'm trying.)
-crime is a suicide: victim's SO explains the victim was dyslexic, but suicide note was written without a mistake.
(Probably too much work for a picture, but that could end up in a novel of mine someday. Cool, now I want to try again. lol)
-man says he isn't currently dating anyone, but there's a bottle of pink nail polish in his bedroom.
-Suspect claims to be allergic to animal fur, but has dogfood by the fridge.
-Suspect claims the (missing) victim never arrived at their house, but there are two cell phones in the house, and Suspect doesn't live with anyone.
-Suspect claims they don't have a computer, but there's a computer-mouse underneath the lamptable (or in some other obscure hiding spot).
-Suspect has mud on his shoes, which tells you that he was the one to make the footprints in the garden the previous night.
-Perpetrater left a message about Batman's Gotham city, but misspelled the city's name; therefore you know it was not the woman, (whose son has posters of Batman in his room.) --- honestly, not sure how you would work a mystery around that; it was just what I thought up next.
-Victim is killed of poisoned chicken, but Suspect is vegetarian, and will not even touch meat to cook it for someone else.
-Suicide note had a few minor grammatical mistakes, but Victim was a 9th grad English teacher.
-Suspect is on a diet, but there's ice cream in his/her fridge, and no one lives with them.
Okay well, I think I'd better stop now. I need to be writing for a while on my own mystery. I think I shall save these ideas somewhere though, in case they may lead to novels someday. This was a cool excercise!
*~*Laura*~*