Detective
[previewyoutube="RMFjx8k2woY;full"][/previewyoutube][p align="start"]When I think about a detective, I picture someone who gathers clues, puts evidence together, and solves crimes. This is exactly what the Detective Crewmate does! With the Notes and Interrogate abilities, they can write down important info, gather clues from other Crewmates, and put it all together to solve murders.[/p][p][/p][p align="start"]The Detective is one of the most complex roles the team has ever worked on. A big part of its complexity comes from the Notes ability. It’s a core component for the Detective that holds a lot of important information and can be the deciding factor on whether the Crewmates win or lose.[/p][p][/p][p align="start"]Considering all of this, it should be no surprise that the Notes ability underwent many, many iterations. So for this blog post, I want to take you through a few of the iterations and highlight why changes were made and some of the difficulties we encountered – one issue was so scary we almost delayed the role entirely![/p][p align="start"][/p]The Early Days
[p align="start"]The early version of a role is always very barebones: grey blocking, reusing assets, and doing the absolute minimum to get the point of the role across. For the role prototypes, the goal is to “find the fun” as fast as possible. This means hacking together the required parts of a role so that we can playtest it ASAP.[/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/33836086/8c44f993f3906c08caca72e445bd02f512bd23a0.png"][/img]Exhibit A, the Notes for the Detective[/p][p][/p][p align="start"]One of the first versions of the Detective had a Suspect List which was created if you found the body and used the Inspect ability on it. Of course, if someone else were to walk in at this moment, they will see you standing over the body and can only assume one thing…[/p][p][/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/33836086/fef82afbeb4b7e8ec2b64bc6c62d382ee6c0322f.gif"][/img][/p][p][/p][p align="start"]With the Suspect List, the Detective automatically got a list of other players, one of which is guaranteed to be the killer. Through playtesting, we found out pretty quickly that there were a couple of pain points with this version:[/p]- [p]First, the role completely relied on finding a dead body. It’s pretty common to go a whole game never finding a dead body. If a player was a Detective and never found one, they never got to use their ability. This was a huge bummer![/p][/*]
- [p]The second issue was that the Suspect List was too powerful because the killer was guaranteed to be in it. Through discussion, the list would be quickly narrowed down and the Impostor outed. We tried a variation where the number of suspects in the list was dependent on the number of players left in the match but that got way too complicated way too quickly.[/p][/*]
More Player Agency
[p align="start"]For the next iteration of the Detective, I wanted to give the player more agency through information collecting. True to the fantasy of being a Detective, they should be able to gather clues around the map.[/p][p][/p][p align="start"]To alleviate the dependence on a Detective finding a body, we created “crime scenes” that replaced a dead body after the next Emergency Meeting. So, if Lime is the Detective, but Pink found the body, Pink will say that it was in Electrical and Lime can go there after the meeting to see the crime scene. The Detective will be able to Inspect the crime scene to get the Suspect List for that murder.[/p][p][/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/33836086/43501af8617308a6300a0de9551c3afe3eff9b09.png"][/img][/p][p]Exhibit B, we tested crime scenes for Detectives to investigate.[/p][p][/p][p align="start"]Speaking of the Suspect List – that also got a big change this iteration. Instead of giving the Detective a list of actual Crewmates, they have to build their own list based on information brought up in meetings. The Detective could build their own Suspect List by investigating other Crewmates around the map to learn their location at the time of the murder.[/p][p][/p][p][img src="https://clan.akamai.steamstatic.com/images/33836086/5447719b167c60f4866674a0f45335cee0a66f45.png"][/img]Exhibit C, the second iteration for the Suspect List[/p][p align="start"][/p][p align="start"]Playtests for this version went a lot better! The Detective’s ability was actually being used and crimes were being solved. Matches were more evenly balanced now that Impostors weren’t guaranteed to be on a Suspect List. But with this iteration, a new (and big) issue emerged. The Inspect ability got overloaded with how much it could do. It made it difficult to teach and play the role. Running around to inspect crime scenes and inspect other Crewmates was far too much for one role.[/p][p align="start"]This wasn’t an issue that could be easily solved with a minor adjustment. A big change was needed that still maintained the fantasy of playing a detective but in a way that didn’t overcomplicate the role. On to the next iteration![/p][p align="start"][/p]Almost There
[p align="start"]The first step towards simplifying the role was in the crime scenes. Instead of having to go to each one, the Suspect List had a section to manually add where it happened. This change is what made the Suspect List turn into the more generalized Notes ability. Along with simplifying the role a lot, I was happy with this change because it fulfilled a lot of other ideas:[/p]- [p]It encouraged more discussion in meetings because now the Detective is very dependent on the person who reported the body to state where they found it[/p][/*]
- [p]It maintained the fantasy of being a Detective by filling in the info they learn into their notes[/p][/*]
- [p]It allowed counter play by an Impostor. If the Impostor self-reported and lied about the location, the Detective has a much harder time trying to solve that murder[/p][/*]
