Best non-time-delimited mystery?

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Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

Hi!

I'm interesting in playing a good mystery game. It's tempting to say,
"Murder Mystery," because those seem to dominate the genre, but it
doesn't need to be a murder mystery at all.

I don't, however, like games where the principle means of ramping up the
difficulty is having the player play under a very restrictive time
limit. That sort of thing just ends up irritating me, I find.

What mysteries would you recommend that aren't strongly time-delimited?
What are your favourites?

(Espionage would be a good second to mystery.)
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

The three Infocom games, obviously; Deadline, Witness and Suspect. Those do
have time limets, but (with the exception of Suspect) not particularly tight
ones. You will probably have to play through them several times, however.
Other than that? Hmm... There's Gumshoe, but that one also has a time clock
and I haven't played it so I don't know if I can recommend it or not. Also,
there's "Break-in." I liked it for the first few bits I played of it. Also,
who could forget _Dangerous Curves_, by Ileen Mullen--this game is the
deffinition of a hardboiled detective novel, simple as that. Finally, there
is Gunther Schmidl's... er... what was that one called again? Where you
break into a rich guy's house at the behest of his wife? Started with an I,
I think... anyway.

Those are the ones I can think of, and they're all for inform. One final
recommendation, however, is for _Guilty Bastards_, written for Hugo by Kent
"the man" Tesman himself. Also--one final thing: a free plug for my man
Jason, his upcoming competition game is... er, sort of mystery-ish. And it
doesn't run on a clock at all, so far as I can tell--just a "story-line"
clock, as in, time moves forward when you advance the story. But even if it
doesn't, you should not have any problems.

Good luck, mystery man!


--

_____

Why settle for the lesser evil? Cthulhu for president!
"Irfon-Kim Ahmad" <irfon@ambienautica.com> wrote in message
news:kBcQc.339001$rCA1.148110@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
> Hi!
>
> I'm interesting in playing a good mystery game. It's tempting to say,
> "Murder Mystery," because those seem to dominate the genre, but it
> doesn't need to be a murder mystery at all.
>
> I don't, however, like games where the principle means of ramping up the
> difficulty is having the player play under a very restrictive time
> limit. That sort of thing just ends up irritating me, I find.
>
> What mysteries would you recommend that aren't strongly time-delimited?
> What are your favourites?
>
> (Espionage would be a good second to mystery.)
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

Calaci. I meant to say, Calaci. My wires got crossed. *viggerously hits
himself about the face*

--

_____

Why settle for the lesser evil? Cthulhu for president!
"James Bond" <wildblinker007@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:10h2qp49h829n03@corp.supernews.com...
> The three Infocom games, obviously; Deadline, Witness and Suspect. Those
do
> have time limets, but (with the exception of Suspect) not particularly
tight
> ones. You will probably have to play through them several times, however.
> Other than that? Hmm... There's Gumshoe, but that one also has a time
clock
> and I haven't played it so I don't know if I can recommend it or not.
Also,
> there's "Break-in." I liked it for the first few bits I played of it.
Also,
> who could forget _Dangerous Curves_, by Ileen Mullen--this game is the
> deffinition of a hardboiled detective novel, simple as that. Finally,
there
> is Gunther Schmidl's... er... what was that one called again? Where you
> break into a rich guy's house at the behest of his wife? Started with an
I,
> I think... anyway.
>
> Those are the ones I can think of, and they're all for inform. One final
> recommendation, however, is for _Guilty Bastards_, written for Hugo by
Kent
> "the man" Tesman himself. Also--one final thing: a free plug for my man
> Jason, his upcoming competition game is... er, sort of mystery-ish. And it
> doesn't run on a clock at all, so far as I can tell--just a "story-line"
> clock, as in, time moves forward when you advance the story. But even if
it
> doesn't, you should not have any problems.
>
> Good luck, mystery man!
>
>
> --
>
> _____
>
> Why settle for the lesser evil? Cthulhu for president!
> "Irfon-Kim Ahmad" <irfon@ambienautica.com> wrote in message
> news:kBcQc.339001$rCA1.148110@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
> > Hi!
> >
> > I'm interesting in playing a good mystery game. It's tempting to say,
> > "Murder Mystery," because those seem to dominate the genre, but it
> > doesn't need to be a murder mystery at all.
> >
> > I don't, however, like games where the principle means of ramping up the
> > difficulty is having the player play under a very restrictive time
> > limit. That sort of thing just ends up irritating me, I find.
> >
> > What mysteries would you recommend that aren't strongly time-delimited?
> > What are your favourites?
> >
> > (Espionage would be a good second to mystery.)
>
>
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

You might want to try Dangerous Curves, by Irene Callaci. It's a
well-written private eye, murder mystery game. The only problem is that I
couldn't find a walkthru or hints for it and so got stuck about half-way
through. Still, it's a great game.

Then there's a couple games where the whole point is to discover who you
are, which makes them pretty much mysteries. For this type, I'd suggest
Babel (it might seem to have a large-scale time limit, but it actually
doesn't) or Slouching Towards Bedlam.

And for espionage I'd suggest Spider and Web. There's a couple of time
limits in the game, but I don't believe there's one for the whole thing.

Hope this helps,

Jason
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

In <kBcQc.339001$rCA1.148110@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com> Irfon-Kim Ahmad <irfon@ambienautica.com> writes:

>What mysteries would you recommend that aren't strongly time-delimited?
>What are your favourites?

Christminster.

--
Ei se mitään.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

"Irfon-Kim Ahmad" <irfon@ambienautica.com> wrote in message
news:kBcQc.339001$rCA1.148110@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
>
> What mysteries would you recommend that aren't strongly
time-delimited?
> What are your favourites?
>

There's an old AGT game called Mop and Murder -- no time limit (save for
one place at the beginning), and it's one-room as well. Unfortunately,
it suffers from an incredibly buggy puzzle at the end that's also a
guess-the-verb.

Insight is a recent title that's both a good murder mystery and a very
innovative piece of work. Definitely worth it. No time limit here,
either.

I also remember liking A New Day, one of the more obscure games from
Comp97 -- the premise, at the very least, is a murder mystery.
Unfortunately, the ending once again uses the, ah, restrictive time
limit.

Actually, that game seems to fall into a broader category of games with
a mystery-based story, but which are mainly traditional puzzlefests.
Depending on how you define "mystery", you could find a lot there. Or
are you just looking for the Deadline-style puzzles (collect evidence,
accuse suspect), only without the time limit?

> (Espionage would be a good second to mystery.)

A search for espionage at Baf's Guide turns up a disproportionate number
of SpeedIF entries. They're out there, I guess.

And a question for others: Mystery IF has, in general, heavily
gravitated towards two things, murders and time limits. Is this really
meant to be a genre convention?
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

Il Thu, 05 Aug 2004 03:16:23 +0000, Kevin Y. ha scritto:

> And a question for others: Mystery IF has, in general, heavily
> gravitated towards two things, murders and time limits. Is this really
> meant to be a genre convention?

I think that this came from the non-interactive genre of the thriller,
where quick pace and last-second actions is very common.

Best regards from Italy,
Dott. Piergiorgio.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

On Wed, 04 Aug 2004 21:32:00 GMT, Irfon-Kim Ahmad <irfon@ambienautica.com> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I'm interesting in playing a good mystery game. It's tempting to say,
> "Murder Mystery," because those seem to dominate the genre, but it
> doesn't need to be a murder mystery at all.
>
> I don't, however, like games where the principle means of ramping up the
> difficulty is having the player play under a very restrictive time
> limit. That sort of thing just ends up irritating me, I find.
>
> What mysteries would you recommend that aren't strongly time-delimited?
> What are your favourites?
>
> (Espionage would be a good second to mystery.)

Ballyhoo by Infocom might work; while there are a few local timed events,
the overall game isn't run by a clock.

--
------------------------
Mark Jeffrey Tilford
tilford@ugcs.caltech.edu
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

Anchorhead is technically a horror game, but the first half or so is
more like a mystery. There are a couple of timed puzzles at the very
end, but even if you can't stand that sort of thing the game is very
much worth playing if you haven't already.

Dangerous Curves is excellent, too, but I got stuck near the end and
had to give up on it (at least I assume it's the end; I'd pretty much
figured out the mystery, but I couldn't find any way to make the game
actually recognize that.)




On Wed, 04 Aug 2004 21:32:00 GMT, Irfon-Kim Ahmad
<irfon@ambienautica.com> wrote:

>Hi!
>
>I'm interesting in playing a good mystery game. It's tempting to say,
>"Murder Mystery," because those seem to dominate the genre, but it
>doesn't need to be a murder mystery at all.
>
>I don't, however, like games where the principle means of ramping up the
>difficulty is having the player play under a very restrictive time
>limit. That sort of thing just ends up irritating me, I find.
>
>What mysteries would you recommend that aren't strongly time-delimited?
>What are your favourites?
>
>(Espionage would be a good second to mystery.)
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

Jason <jdevlin1984@REMOVETHIShotmail.com> wrote:
> You might want to try Dangerous Curves, by Irene Callaci. It's a
> [...]
> Hope this helps,

Thanks! For the moment, I'm mostly looking at zcode games, which rules
out Babel, but I grabbed the others to try. :) (I probably should have
mentioned that restriction in the original post.)
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

James Bond <wildblinker007@hotmail.com> wrote:
> The three Infocom games, obviously; Deadline, Witness and Suspect.
> Those do have time limets, but (with the exception of Suspect) not
> particularly tight ones. You will probably have to play through them
> several times, however.

I seemed to recall finding their time limits irritating, which was what
sparked me to make the post. However, I don't think I ever played them
through. It was more that I found the concept of there being one
irritating. It changes the way in which I play the game. It makes me
tense and I don't feel free to do as much exploring and free
experimentation, or to pursue my own little agendas to what extent the
game allows. Maybe I'll give them another crack, though.

> Other than that?

Thanks for the other suggestions. :) I'll give them a whirl.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

That's a good point. Personally, the way I played them (after the first
time, when I got utterly, hopelessly, completely lost)
was a more "exploratory" way--that is to say, I didn't look to actually
solve the game the first few tries, just looked around to find out what was
there, and what would always be there. After that I hung around different
NPCs at different times to see what they would do (Suspect, in particular,
was masterful in this respect and it annoyed me to no end--everybody would
always be doing SOMETHING.) Once I put together what was happening well
enough from disconnected pieces of stuff on my own, I went around and
gathered stuff to show off and so forth, attempting to actually *solve* the
game and seeing what went wrong and why I couldn't yet and what information
still was missing, and so forth. The Infocom games are very good about that,
since in each one you've got a good eight hours of game time to just flop
around in.

That's just how I played them, though. Your method may vary.
--

_____

Why settle for the lesser evil? Cthulhu for president!
"Irfon-Kim Ahmad" <irfon@ambienautica.com> wrote in message
news:6wPQc.1494559$Ar.956432@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
> James Bond <wildblinker007@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > The three Infocom games, obviously; Deadline, Witness and Suspect.
> > Those do have time limets, but (with the exception of Suspect) not
> > particularly tight ones. You will probably have to play through them
> > several times, however.
>
> I seemed to recall finding their time limits irritating, which was what
> sparked me to make the post. However, I don't think I ever played them
> through. It was more that I found the concept of there being one
> irritating. It changes the way in which I play the game. It makes me
> tense and I don't feel free to do as much exploring and free
> experimentation, or to pursue my own little agendas to what extent the
> game allows. Maybe I'll give them another crack, though.
>
> > Other than that?
>
> Thanks for the other suggestions. :) I'll give them a whirl.
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

James Bond <wildblinker007@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Finally, there is Gunther Schmidl's... er... what was that one called
> again? Where you break into a rich guy's house at the behest of his
> wife? Started with an I, I think... anyway.

"Inherit!"?
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

Yes. YES! Thank you! I *knew* it started with an i! >_<

--

_____

Why settle for the lesser evil? Cthulhu for president!
"Irfon-Kim Ahmad" <irfon@ambienautica.com> wrote in message
news:1zPQc.1494681$Ar.672782@twister01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
> James Bond <wildblinker007@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Finally, there is Gunther Schmidl's... er... what was that one called
> > again? Where you break into a rich guy's house at the behest of his
> > wife? Started with an I, I think... anyway.
>
> "Inherit!"?
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

Mikko P Vuorinen <mvuorine@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote:

> Christminster.

Hmm. I read the review; it sounds interesting. Thanks. :)
 
Archived from groups: rec.games.int-fiction (More info?)

I tend to play mostly ZCode games myself too, but if theres one game to
install a tads interpreter for, it's Babel. It remains, to this day, my
favorite ever IF. (I even enjoyed it more than Planetfall).

Interpreters are easy to find and install, give it a try sometime <g>

-NLST

Irfon-Kim Ahmad wrote:
> Jason <jdevlin1984@REMOVETHIShotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>You might want to try Dangerous Curves, by Irene Callaci. It's a
>>[...]
>>Hope this helps,
>
>
> Thanks! For the moment, I'm mostly looking at zcode games, which rules
> out Babel, but I grabbed the others to try. :) (I probably should have
> mentioned that restriction in the original post.)
 
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