Solving Crimes in Games- How would you do it?

#1 There have been a few games in the past that have incorporated crime solving as part of the gameplay.

The ones that come to mind use point-and-click adventure game style interfaces - for instance, i remember playing a Sherlock Holmes game where you visited suspects houses and gradually gathered clues in a clue book. Once you had enough 'evidence' and potential suspects, then you could solve the case (i forget if you sent the guy to court, or just caught him out).

Another one i remember is a kiddie game called "Where in the world is carmen sandiego?". It worked on a similar basis - you visited locations around the world in order to obtain clues. If you got a little cutscene where the suspect was running away, you were on the right track. Eventually you called the reinforcements in to aprehend the suspect.

Finally, i have heard that the game Anachronox required you to participate in investigations (e.g. find the missing girl, find the X, ...). I tried the demo once, but it seemed a bit tedious and arbitrary (not to mention, buggy) to be any fun - although there are RPG combat elements which i suppose make it more amusing.

As for making everything work in a multiplayer environment, thats a whole other bowl of fish altogether :(

#2 Well i think you'll have to think of real world stuff.

If a murder happens in the game, there should be a certain chance of evidence being left behind. You would probably need to make every weapon in the game have a unique type of identification. Such as if a bullet casing is found, you'd be able to determine the ID of the gun that was used, but not who owns the gun. If more bullet casings are found later, you'd know it was related. And if a suspect is ever arrested with a gun, you could determine the ID of that gun, and if the bullets matched.

Perhaps also there needs to be the same for blood. If a person is shot in a shoot out and runs away... there needs to be evidence left behind. That'd be the blood. again it should have a unique ID in it.

As far as discovering hideouts... you'd need to simply follow suspects. Provided they all go and meet to discuss what to do next. If not you'd need to rely on intercepting conversations, or good old fashion spy work.

#3 I've played some point and click games before James, but they were those CSI games- pretty much just run the mouse across the screen and reveal the story. Like you said, that's a whole different ball of wax when it comes to multiplayer.

Now you are on to something Ramen.
Having crimes leaving evidence that can be traced might work...My setting is Sci-Fi so there wouldn't necessarily be bullets but that doesn't mean that something couldn't be left to identify who may have committed a crime.

I like the idea that if you commit a crime- murder or selling contraband- in "view" of another NPC there is a chance that they will report you. And a squad of cops may come running up. If you ARE a cop in the area then you would get a "report" as to what the crime was and who commited it.

Busting crimes like this is how you can work your way up in the force but busting up illegal casinos and raiding drug labs is where the big experience points are.

So maybe if you bust someone and loot their contraband you can discover where it was made by inspecting it.

It's not as deductive as I would like but it is a start- thanks for the help guys. Keep it coming. I think we are getting somewhere.

#4 Also, if this is a Sci-Fi futuristic setting, there has to be security cameras and such almost everywhere to ensure the publics safety.

You will need to make sure that if someone is gonna kill someone, they risk the chance of being seen on them. That's where the fun could be for them. there should be devices to circumvent being seen, such as jammers or even some kinda of Optical camo.

#5 Are you going to enable each player to have skills/stats?

One thing that annoys me is the run the Mouse over the screen games, they are lazy!!

Perhaps a method is to allow players and NPCs to have skills that are relevant to the game. For instance if I'm a cop, I might have a Perception Skill with a specialisation in Crime Scene.

So when I show up at a crimescene running the mouse over the screen won't automatically show up clues.

It checks against my skill, then it mentions what clue I find. You could add to this furter. Lets say my normal chance of spotting something at a crimescene is 50% not real flash eh, exspecially if we say you can't repeatedly roll the skill (otherwise you could just stand there and constantly check against your skill until make the roll).

However I talk to the officer who was first one the Scene, he gives me some extra info (this can be shown by a bonus to my skill roll). I can check now and my skill level is 60% for this particular crime.

Ofcourse, this doesn't mean you only have one chance to work out the crime. For instance if I miss all the clues (just through bad luck). I could still follow other avenues of investigation. I could search for witnesses, finding a witness means I could check over the crimescene again with a further bonus to my skill check.

Obviously this a very simplistic view of things but you could build a system where playing the Role of a law enforcement officer involves following leads, reviewing evidence, cultivating informers, surveillence, leaning on people, being bribed. etc etc

Gear your system to reward the player who plays in character.

Hell you could also get players to work together, for instance, I'm no good at getting fingerprints but Charlie is, so we always try to log on at the same time cause we work well together.

As more fun they could become corrupt ;-)

#6 You also can't forget about how the person gets in to commit the crime. If he/she was a lousy burglar and forgot to wear gloves, you can always have fingerprints and things like that. How professional a person is has a big impact on who the police should look for. Someone who is big and burly would most likely bash the door down and blast away, whereas a patient, calculating criminal may pick the lock and poison a person, or even go in through an open 6th-story window.

Maybe I've just been playing too much Splinter Cell.

#7 A nice take would be to just gather evidence, giving clues from them according to the character's skill, and not have automatic solving when you gather enough of them : let the player figure it out from what he's got in hand, maybe giving out additional clues when he finds evidence that belongs in a "set".
My point would be it would be nice to actually have a part in solving the crimes rather than just explore to find the necessary evidence/clues and have the crime solved when you reach a certain threshold : require some thinking. Of course, it's more work, but would make for something much more enticing than good old point and click : in general, I'd rather read a good novel of fiction than be a mostly passive protagonist in a point and click adventure or mystery game.
And not puzzles a la Myst or Riven, I mean really having to think about things, from the data at hand : if the clues are done right, you can point the player in the right direction by giving him information without telling him what to do.

#8 The ID's for bullets, guns, blood, eye witnesses, security camera footage, etc.

If your wanting to run this as a jail and go to court system assign each type of evidence a value..
i.e. bullet casing + gun was found on player = x amount of value.
When it gets into court you could make it so that the evidence > (prosecutor - defense) they get convicted, otherwise acquited.

Don't forget about the "fun" things like rigging juries, bribing judges and prosecutors :)

-Jerry

#9 If you get a chance hire out a movie called The Mechanic starring Charles Bronson. It looks bit dated now but its a good film. I think the opening 20 minutes are great and could really give you some ideas on the level of a planning someone would need to do in order to make a murder look like an "accident".

Other movies that could be useful could the old Thunderbolt and Lightfoot a bit cheesy but still kind of fun, plus they should give you some ideas which is really what its all about.

#10 If you could find someone decent at 3d cinematics, the cut scenes would be cool. Like you could see the crime take place but not id the culprit.

all weapons leave residue, even energy weapons. Instead of "match bullet to gun" you match "burn mark to energy signature" and narrow down the energy weapons.

you would also want informers. It could be a random thing like u ask an informer and maybe he only has one piece of the puzzle, but if u dont ask the right questions, you dont get the right answers.

Mix in a natural language parser aka Zork and you have yourself a winner.

I like the concept actually.

Especially if all crimes led to a big pay off for either the criminal or the cop, like promotions etc.

Even if you went to jail, the game should not end. You could try to escape :) It evolves. I like it :)

Where do i play ????

Oh, and heres a giveaway just so you can be inspired to do this and maybe make money. In game subtle advertising. Like the Lexus police car.... or the Cadillac Escalade the criminal drives ;) Or the song on the radio in the car....

You dont think Lexus was in I, Robot for free do you?

Half dozen advertisers paying $100k a year suddenly makes a game more interesting to make eh?

#11 Ooh, natural language parser. This is something I've always wanted to see in a game. Pulled off right it would be a good mechanic, vice a gimmic. Mix in a persistent emotional state and some AI memory triggers and there are a lot of NPC mechanics that could be leveraged in many different game types:

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Player (types): I saw a car on the side of the road five minutes ago with its lights on up the street. Know anything about that?

NPC replies: A car, no. Don't know nuthin about a car. (Character looks down and away, anxious, fidgeting). I've got to go, it's late. // NPC character traits set him up to lie if his story arc has anything to do with a question.

Player (types): Really, you didn't see anything? I don't believe you.

NPC replies (aggitated): I don't care if you don't believe me! // NPC runs away

You run across the NPC a couple of days later and the NPC responds to you differently than if you had never seen him before.

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Complicated, really complicated. But I think this is the next wave in the gaming experience (Graphics... Physics... AI and Adaptive Story). If it required a peripheral (AI Processor board with large - 5 Gig - onboard pre-cache with a dedicated drive for a character state database) or external library / program that were required to play the game - I think it would be worth it. Being convinced by great graphics and reallistic physics only takes you so far. What if each character was designed to learn about the environment, respond to natural text questions with a mix of observation and character attributes, and react to each other in similar ways? It could be incredibly interesting just to watch the virtual world unfold. A universal model made up of granular sub-models right down to the memory and emotional state of every animate object in the game.

Your story would consist of your arch and the configuration of the character behaviors. Unless it was constrained the game would be nearly unpredictable. What fun that would be!?!? Maybe none at all:) But I'm betting the curiousity for discovery and the nature of exploring the people in the game would be draw enough... Engineered right, you could write the character behaviors, set up the environment, world constraints and universal goals - and the game would finish writing itself.

What a challenge!

#12 For energy weapons make it so that all weapons legally have to leave a specific energy signature that is programmed at the factory. Of course some bad programmer will change it or remove any signature. One of the missions could be to track down who did that.

Another thing, that I am not sure how it fits in, is when I would go lizard hunting as a kid I got to the point where I could see a 1.5 inch long lizard 20-30ft away. I think what happens is the brain gets clued in on shapes and patterns. This may give you a concept on how to incorporate experience in finding clues left at a scene.

Also, when you mess with a crime org you should be: threatened, framed, assassinated, etc.

#13 For an RPG, you should give players a choice in what character type to play as well. The technically skilled but socially challenged, relying on science and analysis of evidence. The intuitive type, maybe even crossing over to the psychic... the streetwise dirty harry, busting into the local gang's hangout and intimidating them into spilling their guts about what they know. These could be defined by class at character creation, or evolved by the player through a skill-based system. The more options for character type, the more replayability, and perhaps even allowing for new storylines to open up each type the game is played.