Hello, my name is Noé Z. Wyatt and I’m a private investigator. I’ve been made aware a few weeks ago of a troubling case of disappearances. With each came a cryptic clue, which obviously made people think of abductions.

Here’s the catch: this is happening all around the world, and dating as far back as last year. Which is why police had a hard time figuring anything out. I’ve been contacted by families of six missing persons, but I’m sure we’re not aware of all of them. We’ve managed to solve something with four of their clues: it gave us coordinates.

There, we found a disc containing a few documents - including proof that the victims are kept alive - and some kind of sick game. That’s why I’m calling for your help. We believe getting through this “game” will give us more informations and maybe help us find those poor souls.

Here you’ll find an archive containing the “game” and some info. We’re obviously not sharing everything we found for security and privacy reasons.

Don’t worry, it’s not connected to the internet and won’t collect any data from you. I think you only need a keyboard and mouse.

Also, please don’t die while playing.

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  • 89o
    Lv. 18

    HOW? do you do the 3rd puzzle of 2??????????????

    I tried "33,42,66" and "asmody" and "as mo dy" and "91476" and "141" and nothing works???!!!?!

    Great job! I loved the story and puzzles. It was a great experience. Perhaps you could make a much bigger version of such a thing in the future.

    Edit: also where is the theme i dont see it

    SOUL SWAP
    Submitted

    SOUL SWAP

    • Fachewachewa
      Patron
      Fachewachewa Coder of Noé Wyatt needs your help

      5yrs ago

      mhhh that's weird asmody should have worked, are you sure there wasn't a typo or something? I've never had a answer not working so I'm not sure what happens.

      as for the theme, there's no death since the character is you, but also the victims are still alive, and the overall theme of the game is about things ending and changing, it's a little more clear with the "ending"

  • gary butler
    Lv. 6

    This has really got some depth. I'm going to need to come back when I have more time. I love the puzzles. Thanks for making this. And the meta, top notch, very original.

  • Tero Hannula
    Patron

    Mmh, I might try this kind of game later in some other time, it was good idea. Though I wasn't very good detective, couldn't get past the third part two problem. I need help to help Wyatt :( The music was pleasent to listen, while you search for the answers. And it was good that you added some texts outside the game, it is about the world building and giving feeling about bigger schema. It was good take on this jam :)

    Reload
    Submitted

    Reload

    • Fachewachewa
      Patron
      Fachewachewa Coder of Noé Wyatt needs your help

      5yrs ago

      Thanks for playing :)

      The world building was a big part of it yeah, I had to make some compromises to keep it "realistic" that might have hurt the game aspect of it, so I'm glad you enjoyed it!

  • baku
    Patron

    Mr. Wyatt,

    Thank you for recruiting me onto this case. I have taken a look at the "game", and I believe to have gotten some more information out of it, however I am unsure what it fully means. I have sent you an email containing this info. I am unsure if this is truly the end, but it is the best I could come up with for now.

    I look forward to hearing back from you.

    Sincerely, Baku

  • Kwis
    Lv. 67

    That's honestly not a bad idea, but... I sighed for every puzzle starting from the periodic table (that would have left me guessing for days before I figure it's the periodic table), as well as the geographic one...

    • The periodic table is hard to guess if you don't clearly think about it. I was convinced it was supposed to be the keyboard, despite the layout not exactly matching. And even when I knew that, the one after multiplication was annoying because I couldn't check google by alternating windows (had to have the window below the game, if I assume it's possible) since anything you write gets erased when you get back to the game, which made it even more of a pain cause I had to memorize the number, thinking I either had to add them one by one. Then multiplied. After that I figured I had to write them, but I really felt like it was a chore more than it was stimulating my brain. Having the periodic table at hand would have helped. Maybe have the player write "what it is" so that people have an hint as to the solution (cause I assumed it was a keyboard at first, so I didn't think about the periodic table at all), then maybe allow to use one so that all the thinking is processed by our logic and not back and forth with the internet.
    • can't copy paste, so using the geographic localization felt like I was in school recopying what was on the board (the game) to my notebook (google). The second part, even with the hints, I can't figure it out. You say it's the street name but there are several streets around the arc of triomphe? I tried all the avenues to no avail. tried different spellings (it didn't allow accents btw lol), wondered if the hint was wrong but I can't figure out at all what you mean by field...? Also just tried Presbourg in case it was "street" specific, same thing. Well, I guess I can't go further.

    I like the idea, and the presentation is not bad, but it's more a game of "trying anything that may work" rather than a puzzle...

    Trapped
    Submitted

    Trapped

    • Fachewachewa
      Patron
      Fachewachewa Coder of Noé Wyatt needs your help

      5yrs ago

      Oh the irony, I don't know what I did but my reply got erased while I was writing it... :'D

      Short version: Didn't realize alt-tabbing out got rid of the text in "keyboard_string". The game saves it if you click out of the box but not if the game loses focus. My bad!

      We talked about the street thing, but I'll say this publicly: that part was a really bad idea, done in a bad way.

      As for the rest, I get it, but the whole idea is to get ressources from outside the game to solve things in the game. The periodic table was ideally a way to make the player understand that it was ok to "cheat".

      But the alt/tab bug + the fact that some answers are too precise / arbitrary are indeed big issues, but definitely fixable.

  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    5yrs ago

    Your game is wild, I was stunned to find reading .txt files and google searching as expected gameplay. Really far out.

    But if I might suggest, Dective Noé Wyatt, that your suspect finds his suspects with these google searches? ; )

    But seriously, neat ideas. Having to break away from the "game" world and solve a problem is somewhat off putting at first. I think having a timed event of such danger (hostages!) as a part of the story made it a bit more stressful the more I immersed myself. Could certainly see an appeal to a game provoking such feelings.

    • Fachewachewa
      Patron
      Fachewachewa Coder of Noé Wyatt needs your help

      5yrs ago

      I'm sure you'll be safe! :D

      I honestly didn't consider the stressful aspect of it, but that's interesting, I'll take it as a positive! Anyway thanks for the feedback!

  • Allison James
    Patron

    Intriguing game!

    I think it could probably have done with some kind of basic "alternative answer" checking - for example, getting the exact answer for 2 the game was looking for took me a few tries despite fundamentally knowing it.

    I got stuck fairly quickly and couldn't see the game through to the end, but I enjoyed what time I got to spend with the game. Lateral thinking "Google-em-up"s are up my alley and this was no exception!

    Rev%lver
    Submitted

    Rev%lver

    • Fachewachewa
      Patron
      Fachewachewa Coder of Noé Wyatt needs your help

      5yrs ago

      Thanks for the feedback! Glad you enjoyed what you saw :)

      I totally agree, I did the alternative answers thing for a few questions but realized too late I should have done it for other parts too. I didn't have time to have the game playtested by other people and that's something I would have noticed right away ahah.

  • damnscout
    Lv. 3

    Really interesting concept. I liked the build up. Got caught up on the 2nd puzzle. Recognized the periodic table, and searched for it, and brought it up. When it started asking me to multiple stuff, I was, and I got the first one done. However, the second puzzle with that wouldn't work. Tried with the atomic weights, and that didn't work either. Still, and interesting take on the theme. One other thing, the sound seemed kinda loud.

    • Fachewachewa
      Patron
      Fachewachewa Coder of Noé Wyatt needs your help

      5yrs ago

      Damn, that's something I hate in game when it's too loud. As I usually seem to have sound louder than everyone, I thought it was ok, should have been more careful.

I had a hard time getting people to rate this. It was still relatively popular, so I’m guessing a few people downloaded it but didn’t rate it.

Anyway that’s really not the genre you’d expect in a jam. It requires patience and investment from the player, and it can take A WHILE. I also didn’t want to break immersion in the presentation, so that didn’t help.

It still got 4th in immersion and 5th in innovation, which is pretty cool.

IDEA

This game was inspired by the In Memoriam games by Lexis Numérique. In those, you had to give your email address to get updates from game characters and alt-tab constantly to search fake websites to find information.

My goal here was to force people to play “outside” the game, so I made an email address for it and included text files. The periodic table thing was here to make something obvious enough that would force the player to use google. Then I knew I could use various codes and google map, which was at the core of my idea.

As for the theme, it’s kinda hidden, but it was here from the start. Outside of the fact that you can’t die and the victims aren’t dead, the idea behind it was some kind of apocalypse (as “new beginning” more than “end of times”).

JAM

I didn’t have time to get people playtesting the game, which is a shame for a puzzler. The only thing I “tested” was the missing file which wasn’t clear at all because it didn’t have a square around it.

I also missed a few occasion where I needed to add alternative answers.

Few things I realized after the fact:

  • GMS resets "keyboard_string" when you alt-tab
  • people aren’t that familiar with the concept of elysian fields or morse code
  • Google Maps translation is weird
CREDIT

The banner is made with some free stock photos. For the ambient music I knew I’d just modify it so the choice wouldn’t be that important. I took Lonely Troutman II by Will Rosati because it’s free and pretty good. And for the country outline, I used Wikipedia and GMap screencaps as base.

Result 31st
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