Same theory as above, except [color=blue]Jessica was poisoned, the effects of which look like asphyxiation. The rope was always at the length at which it was found, and it was just used to trick Jessica into thinking she had a chance at surviving if she shot the gun. She did so at the window, but by that point was already succumbing to the poison and couldn’t move her body, using the last of her strength to pull the trigger. She then succumbs to the poison, and Genji simply opened the window from the outside while getting the bolt cutters.[/color]
Well, wouldn’t that have been convenient. Being aware enough to listen to, understand, and follow through with shooting the gun, but at the same time being so out of it that there was a sensation of being choked. You have to wonder how in that woozy of a state she kept herself so perfectly still.
Oh, well.
[color=red]Jessica had not been poisoned or under the influence of any drugs that would’ve changed her perception of reality. This applies at the time before and the moment of her death.[/color]
[color=blue]They didn’t see Jessica but a fake body/fake legs dressed as Jessica. Jessica was put in a deathtrap just like in the intermission - but in a different room. Afterwards he rushed to where she was really kept and cut the rope she was dangling from. Then while getting the cutter he carried her into the VIP room through the window to the right, quickly pulled the legs away while Hideyoshi wasn’t looking, and threw Jessica down in its place.[/color] (alternatively he carefully slid her into place behind the fake legs, then quickly pulled them away. The suspicous bit wouldn’t take much more than a moment.)
And cause it’s so fun - [color=blue]A random other person X (or Kinzo-who-was-secretly-alive) was put into a deathtrap similar to Jessica’s. Rest is same except Genji only puts the gun into VIP room.[/color]
Yo some guy called Crooked Hinge called, he wants his shit back.
In all seriousness, let’s cut through all of this in one shot:
[color=red]When the gunshot occurred, the gun that caused it was inside of the VIP room.[/color]
The rest of the problems with this theory should come from there. And if the problems don’t become apparent with the murder, they will with the letter.
Just to confirm, does this red also extend to the possibility of [color=Blue]the culprit having placed the gun somewhere inside the VIP room where it could be easily reachable through the gap (such as by attaching it to the other side of the door with tape or somesuch), and covertly sticking their hand inside for a short moment to pull the trigger while pretending to help break down the door[/color]?
Hooray, I finally had the time to reread through the narrative and take some notes. There was some stuff I had glossed over before that is likely relevant and should be thought about, such as Kinzo’s suicide. Now I just have to find the time to go through the notes and properly process the information therein.
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Two words: fake body. 
Your assumption is correct, the red does indeed counter that possibility as well. Would be pretty cheap otherwise.
Well, in that case the main problem to tackle with this gameboard is abundantly clear indeed. Neither Shannon nor Genji could’ve shot the gun, but it seems nobody but those two could’ve swapped the letter. The gun can only be shot by a non-Shannon/Genji culprit, Jessica, or Natsuhi. Jessica dying from asphyxiation and being witnessed stationary on the floor right before the gunshot was heard makes it unlikely Jessica shot the gun. The gun being found beside Jessica’s body makes it unlikely Natsuhi shot the gun.
As the bedroom Natsuhi’s corpse was in was not described in any way, it would be strange if any detail about it was relevant to the answer, but I’ll throw this in anyway. [color=Blue]Genji had instructed Natsuhi to shoot herself, or else he will kill Jessica. A string was attached to the gun that either pulled the gun out of the room through an open window with a counterweight, or Genji simply ran fast enough to use the string himself to pull the gun away from the room before Krauss entered it. Or perhaps Krauss picking up the key that had a string attached to it triggered some kind of string trick to move the gun out of the room. In any case, Genji took the gun, entered the VIP room through the side window (perhaps he had set a yet another string trick he could use to smash the window from the inside by making a hammer crash into it or somesuch, allowing him to unlock the window and go inside), and threw the gun near Jessica’s corpse at some opportune moment. Then he rejoined everyone with the bolt cutters.[/color]
Shannon has her fingers in all the right pies, so she’d be in the best position to manipulate things to happen the way they did… but she couldn’t have shot the gun, and she was apparently in front of the VIP room door all the time. Without some seriously impressive automated mechanism, the crime seems impossible for her to have committed.
Naturally, the issue with that is:
A piece of advice:
Be careful not to slip into the territory of forming theories just for the sake of making it “work” with the reds. This not being directed at anyone specifically, but having seen some of the discord discussion, there were a lot of solutions proposed that would’ve “technically” worked with the red, but would’ve essentially been a slight variation on a theory that had been shot down before. My position from before hasn’t change - my objective here isn’t to “win”, it’s to have fun and have you reach that finish line. There’s no point if you’ve got 99% figured out but be denied victory because you didn’t give me that 1%.
(One could argue the importance of certain details is subjective, but I try to be as fair as I can about it. And in my opinion, I have been.)
That said, there were also a lot of points and questions brought up through the course of the game - some were good, some were pretty off-point, but I will commend you all for thinking over the details here. I know you’re stuck. As I said - this isn’t and was never meant to be easy or trivial.
But there is a path.
(Edit: This post ended the game. I figured I should spoiler it in case anyone reading this in the future still wanted to think about it before reading this.)
Original Post
Well I can’t not try this one.
[color=blue]Same initial premise as my previous one. The “legs” they saw weren’t Jessica’s. However, a mirror was placed diagonally in front of the gap - so the window they saw “across” was actually the window to the right. (Seeing how it was a small gap, so the mirror didn’t have to be that wide, so it’s not that unreasonable.)
This, of course, turns most of the room into a massive blind spot, and Jessica’s death trap was set up proper in the center. After the shot, Genji entered through window 1 (which is now out of view) and cleans up. After that, he waits for his chance when Hideyoshi was looking away and swiftly pulls the mirror away to the right, leaving them with an identical scene there. Then he opens window 2 and throws everything outside - the mirror crashes into thousands of shards. He breaks the window to make it seem like the shards are just from that. Then he returns with the cutter.[/color]
Edit: Actually nevermind. The image would have been the wrong way around for them. Should have slept on it…
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No, actually, you got it. Flip the legs around in your head and you’re there.
This is good enough. The letter trick hasn’t been explained sufficiently, but as I clarify in the explanation, given Rune’s reasoning in discord, the defeat there would’ve been inevitable; and continuing from here wouldn’t be fun, since the discussion would come down to the details and desperate red clutches - both from me and the players, making the exercise pointless.
I concede.
I will now explain the solution in detail.
The Solution
The culprit is Genji.
Krauss and Shannon had had an affair at some point in the past. The affair had ended, but nevertheless, Genji held a grudge - detesting disloyalty above all. Instead of killing him, however, he chose to make him suffer - taking the fall for the murder of his family.
THE LETTER
Let’s start with the letter. You… didn’t really figure this one out fully, but the core of the trick had been struck, and from what theorizing Rune showed off in discord, he would’ve gotten close enough with his theory there.
Firstly, Genji knew in advance Kinzo intended to commit suicide that night. Kinzo gave Genji a letter and instructed him to give it to the family. It was Kinzo’s last will and testament.
Genji, however, had other plans.
The trick consisted of two major factors: psychological ones and the actual physical ones.
Let’s… start with the psychological ones.
As theorized by Rune, Genji had made preparations to create a disarray during dinner.
He’d told Jessica something was wrong with Natsuhi - that her mental state and her treatment of servants was getting out of hand.
He’d poisoned Nanjo to give him a stomachache.
He planted the love letter in Battler’s bag (it was originally an old letter between Krauss and Shannon) and hinted to George. Knowing George’s obsession, it wouldn’t have been hard to guess what would’ve happened next. Battler, frustrated over George’s behavior and seeing he wouldn’t believe him anyway, taunted George and claimed he was in a relationship with Shannon. However - his very own taunting, he’d given away that they couldn’t have possibly made any plans together. He claimed the two of them would go to the VIP room together and described a steamy shower, all arranged beforehand by Shannon. Of course, as you are aware, the VIP room has no bathroom in it. A mistake Shannon wouldn’t have made.
Krauss, Natsuhi, Hideyoshi and Eva would’ve been in a face-off by default.
Last are Maria and Rosa. Genji understood beforehand that Rosa would’ve been paying more attention to Maria than anything else, especially in an atmosphere as hostile and unknown as the one that would’ve been caused by his other machinations. You may find it interesting that his own actions brought to that state of things between Maria and Rosa. After all, the inciting incident over them bonding was the disappearance of Maria’s father. Naturally, the culprit behind that was Genji. Krauss, you see, wasn’t the first time Genji acted upon seeing betrayal of another partner.
You may wonder what would have given Genji the confidence and ability to anticipate the human mind to the degree that he had. The answer is simple. He was the old colleague Maria’s father had met the night he disappeared. Before becoming a butler, Genji was a psychologist. (It goes without saying, but I did not anticipate you to take this leap in logic; it’s only there to explain what had actually happened).
This disarray would’ve minimized the risk for the act of switching the letter.
Which, as speculated, was done by strings.
I would like to take this time to point out that your main barrier in proper reasoning here was the assumption that the letter had to be moved from one side of the table to the other in one quick motion - by a strong tug of a string. Obviously, something like that would’ve been noticed by most if not all.
But that’s not what Genji had done.
As I have attempted to tell you earlier, what follows is not trivial. I tried hinting that you needed paper for this with the Aftermath chapter - and you really did.
There were two strings. String A and String B. There were also two nails - one near the entrance (the one Krauss has accidentally stepped on) and one at the very - very south of the room. (Hold your objections, they will be addressed shortly.) The nail near the entrance had not been placed when everyone had walked into the dining room. The one on the south had, since it was at the very, very south, nobody would’ve gotten in its way.
Let us take a look at the state of things when everyone walks into the dining room. String A will be colored blue, and string B will be colored red for convenience sake. The parts that are transparent show that the string runs under the table. The little square at the very bottom is the nail on the south part.
As you can see, string A runs from the position where the letter was, went down the table to the south, went underneat it to the point in front of the door, turned right, went around the lamp, and towards where Genji was. String B goes from roughly in front of where Maria was, goes to the north, goes underneath the table to the south, then turns right - again, towards Genji.
None of the strings are tense - they’re simply lying where they are.
Almost immediately, a question rises: How did nobody notice the strings?
None of the strings would have been noticed due to the simple simple fact it was extremely thin and - more importantly - the bright lights would’ve caused the extremely polished table to create a strong reflection, ensuring that the strings are harder to see.
So, the dinner begins.
Genji takes the letter Kinzo had given him. As he is placing it in front of Krauss, he attaches String A to the statuette with scotch tape. He then goes to his spot and awaits for Shannon’s cart to arrive.
Shannon’s cart, as speculated, had been sabotaged beforehand. I would’ve accepted any explanation given for it, it truly didn’t matter. My explanation is that Genji had simply unscrewed the wheel beforehand and waited for the cart to crash at any point as she was wheeling it up. (He knew she would, given he was the head servant.)
The reason for this was not only for the letter - but for Genji to be able to place the nail on the top side of the room.
Another objection arises: Genji, given this explanation, couldn’t have possibly pinpointed the exact position the cart would’ve landed. What if it had crashed right as she wheeled it in? How does he get to the entrance?
The answer is relatively simple - he pretends to be searching for the busted wheel. Or he takes a chance and decides to hope nobody realizes he went around the table, despite the fact that Shannon would’ve been close enough for him for there to be no need for that.
He then returns to his position, and we have an image roughly like this:
(I made the string a bit thicker to make it clearer what was happening in this case. Which is to say - I’m sleepy and forgot there was a much easier way I could actually draw it but fuck it.)
In other words, by pulling at the string at times where he could tell nobody was looking down , he inched it towards the south end of the table, roughly around where Maria was sitting.
In other words, you get something like this after he’s all done:
Of course, next question: How does nobody notice it was moved if they happen to glance down at the table?
Simple human oversight. Because Genji had carefully inched it and moved it slowly, they would’ve only noticed a small difference from the last time they’d seen it. With not a lot of attention being brought to the letter, the statutette, or anyone really caring about the letter to begin with, it was a hole in human way of looking at things Genji could exploit.
When Maria complained about her food - as he was grabbing her plate, he attached string B to the statuette and detached String B. (Detach A - when he arrives, attach B - as Rosa’s tasting). Genji does NOT switch the letter at this stage.
Obviously, the alternate solution here is that he simply moved it all the way until the end of the table, and made the switch of the strings then. The trick will ultimately work the same.
This plan obviously relies then, given the positioning of String B, that Genji knew Maria’s food would be bad beforehand. How did he set that up?
There was nothing wrong with the food.
It was the cutlery that was tampered with. And once Maria had gotten the resedue of the foul taste over the meat Rosa, who’d taken a bite of it, would taste it as well - even if she hadn’t used Maria’s cutlery.
He then goes to the kitchen, and gets another plate. As theorized before, he stood at the door between the hallway to the kitche and the dining room to overhear Battler’s game and write it into the letter, along with the other details he couldn’t have forseen (who would help Shannon, specifically). Given that he’d left the lower end of the first page empty, it was easy enough to write it.
How did Genji come back from the kitchen so quickly to overhear Battler’s game and have enough time to write in the letter?
The replacement dish had originally been meant to Ange. Genji never informed the servants she wouldn’t be arriving just for this purpose - so Gohda would’ve had another dish ready from the get-go.
Genji then returns. The switch happens as he’s revealing the plate with Maria’s food. He has the bell that had covered the plate covering most of his hand from the people down at the table. Nanjo is still sick, Rosa focused on Maria. The letter had been in his sleeve. He held the bell with his ring finger, pulled out the letter from his sleeve with his index and middle finger, placed it right next to the statuette, moved the statuette over to his letter, and then took the letter that had originally been there.
It goes without saying, but you were never required to say this.
It is at this point that I should probably digress to point out that it was only after doing this that, had Genji been caught, he would’ve been in trouble. Had he been caught at any other point, he could have simply claimed he was following Kinzo’s instructions. If he had been caught here, though? That would’ve been pretty bad. This was his margin of error.
Returning to his previous position, he simply pulled on String B much like he did String A to move it back to its original position. And the deed is done. Krauss, when picking it up, didn’t pick up the statuette from its base, and thus never noticed the string.
After everyone leaves, Genji simply cleans up after himself, removing all evidence in the process.
Of course, there is the last question.
WHY??
This was another part where you looked at the situation a bit wrong. You reasoned there was no reason for the letter to be moved, given that there’s no way anyone would’ve known about an arbitrary area of awarness in advance. This was true and it is true right now. Genji did not do it for that reason.
His reasons were much simpler - so that, once the letter was read - nobody could say he ever went near it. Thus, when the police think over the crime, he becomes effectively ruled out.
As for the letter itself - it’s quite simple. To frame Krauss.
Nobody had reached for the letter and indeed, nobody would ever claim anyone reached for the letter. If Krauss had attempted to, he would’ve been dismissed, given that he’s the prime suspect. This left only two possible solutions:
- Krauss made up the letter as he was reading out something else (what the police ended up concluding).
- Krauss covertly wrote the letter and switched it himself, as he was reaching for it.
The “solution” would’ve come down to whether or not Krauss had bothered to show anyone the letter after the fact. But given everything, those would’ve been the only two acceptable circumstances.
It was a double bluff, basically. A trick to create the illusion that Krauss was attempting to make a trick to divert suspicion away from himself after his wife and daughter are murdered.
I… think that should cover all in regards to the letter. Do let me know if there’s something I left out.
THE VIP ROOM
This one is essentially as Rune described. Rune’s mistake was simply imagining the legs to be facing the wrong direction. Basically, it was like this:
(Apologies for the wonky diagram, this is just to get the point across. In retrospect, one of my biggest regrets here was the sloppy way the original diagram was made, as well. I originally designed it with simply a “show where everything is” midset, but I should’ve perhaps paid more attentions to getting all the proportions right. Alas, my diagram-making skills are poor regardless, so I apologize if anyone had considered but dismissed the solution because of it.)
The narrowness and the fact that there was a bit of the wall making a small hallway, and given the small gap in the door, and with the mirror itself creating a fake sense of depth, it would’ve been good enough to fool anyone who’d just heard a gunshot and believed to be staring at a dead body. The light source came from one Genji himself had planted in the corner of the room (thanks to some extra power plugs put in during the renovations).
Naturally, the mirror covered up what was happening in the room at the time - Jessica fighting for her life, desperately trying to win the “game”. She caught the gun with her feet and fired it through window 1, which was opened, but alas - she choked and died. Much like Genji anticipated she would’ve, anyway. If she’d reached the gun, she’d tipped over the chair. If she tried reaching for the gun, she would’ve tipped over the chair. If she didn’t do anything, he would’ve killed her when he inevitably reentered the room.
Does this mean that the gunshot was optional in the scheme?
Correct, and it not happening, while not allowing Genji an alibi, would’ve still allowed for an alternative.
You see, the legs seen by everyone weren’t fake. They weren’t fake, but they weren’t Jessica’s.
They were Battler’s.
After knocking him out with his drink, Genji shaved his legs, put a skirt on him, and used him as his pair of legs.
Wait, what the fuck?
Do recall how Battler found it suddenly chillier than he’s used to when he woke up, despite it being mentioned the temperature was pretty much perfect and there was no reason to touch the thermostat. And why he had to scratch his leg in the first place during the Aftermath chapter…
As you can see, though, I would’ve accepted fake legs just as well. Could’ve even gone for using Kinzo’s cold dead corpse as a substitute as well.
(Yes, he really did die in that fall.)
After the gunshot went off, he went to get the clippers. He was a trusted servant, making sense for him to go get them, and he would’ve shooed off anyone bent on following him (not that there would have been any reason to; and even if they had, with Battler on the scene and Jessica inevitably dead, Genji would’ve been the last person on their minds, even with the mirror trick in place).
Genji then reentered through window 1, set up the scene, grabbed the mirror during Hideyoshi’s lack of attentiveness, and shut the light on the right side of the room off. He then broke window 2 and threw the mirror outside. (This a question I was surprised nobody had considered; given that the window was fully broken - it meant it probably hadn’t happened when the gunshot had gone off. Meaning it was broken deliberately and for some other reason.)
Genji then grabbed Battler, the lamp, and left the room. On his way back, he simply places Battler back in his sleeping position.
Okay. What was the objective here?
Again, to frame Krauss later.
If Jessica fires the shot, he goes and takes the cartridge out, making it seem like the revolver wasn’t even fired, and making it appear like yet another attempt by Krauss to create the illusion of an impossible crime. He egg timer contraption had been set up beforehand. (Genji could not have simply taken the revolver with him to further tighten the noose around Krauss’ neck., since disposing it outside would’ve ensured police eventually found it, and keeping it on his own person would’ve been a death sentance - so leaving it behind was the best option.)
If Jessica does not fire off the shot, he THEN simply leaves Battler behind, creating room for a theory in which Battler and Krauss had constructed a sick game of murder. The numbers game would’ve also become deceptively simple in the eyes of the police if the two had been in on it from the beginning.
As for such a cruel way of creating a remote gunshot?
It was an extra fuck you to Krauss.
He, who had betrayed his wife with a woman right under his nose, would be forced to unknowingly be present while his daughter was still dying, begging and struggling for her life.
NATSUHI’S ROOM
This one was exactly what it had appeared to be. Genji had made a mistake - he’d practiced getting the key under the door, and it would’ve worked well enough. He did not practice actually breaking the string (since that would’ve meant he locked the door permanately and couldn’t really explain himself afterwards). This made him forget that on the night of the execution, given how tough the string was, he wouldn’t be just tying the key, he would be attaching it with tape to ensure it separated itself from the key. And once the tape was attached, the key was too thick to slide under the door. And given that at the time, Genji had to go with Shannon and on that patrol to come across the VIP room, he had no choice but to leave it behind.
The reason for this mystery being included to begin with was to simply hint to the players strings are a thing that exists and that the string itself is strong. That’s all there is to it.
That should cover it all, I think.
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This is no trick right? We survived…right?
Well… damn son. Looks like it was right to not sleep on it. Might have dismissed it for the wrong reasons then.
In my head he saw the right part of the window frame and that may not have checked out when mirrored. I also might have dismissed the legs being that way around because I wasn’t sure if there was enough space in that corner.
I guess the shards and that we even had a somewhat detailed map were pretty strong clues on their own.
The letter part… Didn’t think there would be THAT much string, but okay it’s probably needed if it had to be moved purely with that. How the actual switch is done is pretty neat. Though the part where Krauss picks up the letter seems kind of risky cause yknow, depending on just how he does it he may have noticed something was stuck to it, and there seem to be many ways he could have done it where he’d very much notice. Like, just by brushing against it with his hand. And explaining why that string is going into Genji’s corner would have been kind of awkward for the servant.
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The way I saw it in my mind was that the base wasn’t tall enough for anyone to reasonably grab the statuette by it, but I do admit it’s a potential oversight given that I never explicitly bothered to specify that.
Anyways, hope everyone had fun.
Now I must go to Valhalla to slumber. Until next time.
Good job again, Blackrune. Thanks for hosting another game, DWaM.
It’s unfortunate when the writer and the player have differing views on what is too implausible. There were a couple of things I suggested that you dismissed as something people would obviously notice that I considered entirely possible for them to miss, whereas sliding it through the areas of awareness of eight people twice was something I thought people would obviously notice. Sliding it slowly past only George and Battler was something I thought risky, but plausible. The other direction, not so much. I know there’s the famous video about a man in a gorilla suit prancing around in a basketball game that watchers won’t notice, but that only works if they’re told to pay close attention to how many times the ball is passed between the players. Still, since we weren’t required to get the details right there, it isn’t really that much of a problem, though it did make me focus on Shannon much more than on Genji.
I spent a fair amount of time yesterday thinking about the motive of the culprit. As I was operating under the assumption that the motive would be something that could be inferred from the story, I ended up theorizing that Natsuhi had arranged a hitman to kill Rudolf, Kyrie and Rosa’s husband (yes, really), and the culprit mistakenly believed Krauss was behind it. I wonder, were we supposed to be able to infer from the story that Krauss and Shannon had had an affair? I had thought that the affair accusation by the detective was because of malicious rumours spread by the culprit to make Krauss look more guilty.
I’ll write some other questions or comments later. Anyhow, thanks again for hosting the board. It was fun to think about, and I love that the legs were actually Battler’s.
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In my defense I don’t recall any of the part regarding the conveyor belt to be implausible, I merely questioned at what times the switch could have possibly happened and how it could’ve been operated. The main idea, as I said, was that the letter was not slid across the table in one single strong pull, but rather carefully and deliberately inched in a room full of people that were distracted with their own issues to begin with.
Regarding the affair - although I would’ve never asked you to get it, I know at least one person got what I was going for looking at the discussion on discord.
Thanks for participating, glad you managed to have fun!
A new game (one I’d constructed months ago) should be up later today.
The Shannon/Krauss interactions were too random for it not to be an affair, haha.
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Only so many sins the walls could have told me about.
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I never envisioned that the letter was moved in a single swift motion - that would’ve made it even less possible for it to go unnoticed. The reason I thought the letter would be noticed was not because I thought someone would notice it moving. Rather, since it’d have to move slowly, the letter would spend a fairly lengthy amount of time in a position that was clearly different from where it was placed on the table. As people’s eyes tend to wander during the dinner, and there was little else on the table for one’s attention to get drawn to, the mysterious letter from Kinzo with a statuette on top of it in the wrong place should’ve stuck out like a sore thumb to almost anyone. Without some very tangible and prolonged distraction such as Genji prancing around the table naked, it seems excessively improbable to me that nobody’s eyes fell on the midsection of the table long enough for them to notice the unique unusual object of interest being a meter or two away from where it was placed.
Anyhow, a couple of questions regarding some details.
When did Genji steal the letter from Krauss? When they were breaking down the door, perhaps? Shannon having the best opportunity to pickpocket it from Krauss when she was alone helping the drunk Krauss move around was one of the reasons I found her so suspicious.
How did Genji know when Hideyoshi was not looking? Removing a large mirror and turning off the light doesn’t seem like a split-second process. The diagram isn’t too specific, so could it be there was some gap through which Genji could see where Hideyoshi was looking at?
Why did Jessica make no sound during her struggle? Her mouth was covered with duct tape, yes, but as long as all your airways are not blocked, even though you cannot speak, you can still make audible noise. One would imagine that she’d try to make some kind of noise when she noticed her father trying to break down the door and shouting her name. Krauss wasn’t screaming nonstop, so he should’ve heard Jessica. Had Genji perhaps threatened her to silence somehow?
Some other comments.
I really like that it was Maria’s cutlery that was tampered with, not the food. It was a clever way to control something seemingly random, and I never considered the possibility, even though it is such a clear and elegant solution to the problem.
Wow, that string trick was pretty complex. I also like the premise of having two separate incidents with (seemingly) mutually exclusive suspects, yet having only one culprit responsible for everything.
I feel like Krauss never mentioning in his narration his affair with Shannon is a bit of a breach of the premise of a reliable, earnest observer. Krauss gave his thoughts and exposition on several things during the story, but when situations arose in which it would’ve been natural for him to think of this plot-relevant detail, the narrative conveniently omits it. I feel it’d be better to either have a honest narrator that descibes everything relevant that he would notice or have a reason to think about, or state in the foreword that the narrator is allowed to omit things at their own discretion. If the narrator is “generally earnest” but still can omit things, or conveniently not think about something damning he’d have every reason to think about, things get unpleasantly murky as the readers have to start guessing about the limits of how reliable the narration is.
Is the person in the background of the AFTERMATH image Vergilius, the blue-haired detective? Interesting reference you inserted there. The way he talked at the end of the interrogation made me wonder for a moment if he might be somehow connected to the crime, but I quickly dismissed the idea since he wasn’t included in the final list of characters given early on.
How do you do those drop down things in posts, like you did with AFTERMATH, that hide the text behind a click? I feel like that’d be convenient to know for the future, but a brief Google search yielded no useful results.
A third gameboard, huh? Let’s see if Blackrune can manage a hat trick and solve three boards in a row.
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Oh one more thing.
Revolvers are actually pretty hard to silence since the drum generally isn’t airtight (meaning just putting some kind of silencer on the front won’t work since the noise also gets out on the sides.)
Though I guess seeing how they didn’t point out anything weird about Hideyoshi’s suggestion and Natsuhi’s death was the most vague/irrelevant one I can overlook it. Probably ways to handwave it.
I’ll have an advantage in the next one, but don’t worry I’ll try to let you catch up.
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I mean, that’s fair enough. Again, it more comes down to people paying more attention to each other and their own food in my mind than a letter nobody really cared about. While they would of course see it and subconsciously take notice of it, because nobody else had brought it up and because every person already had something else on their mind, they wouldn’t register it to the point where they would immediately notice something was wrong. That’s how I viewed it, at least. Then again, it could just be the fact that I’m the kind of person that probably wouldn’t notice something like that so.
Regarding the questions:
Truth be told, it didn’t really matter when the letter was taken, given that there were clear passages of time after the letter was brought up. Krauss really could’ve just simply misplaced it or dropped it; possibly even while moving Kinzo. It’s not a detail I harped on too much given that the narrative itself kind of takes it for granted it was kind of gone.
Genji could’ve figured it out mainly because of what Hideyoshi had been distracted by when he wasn’t looking - he would be fiddling with the chain. Obviously, some grunts and comments by Hideoyshi as he did it, plus the sound of the chain itself would’ve been enough of a tip-off to give Genji the green light to move quickly. Alternatively, perhaps he managed to peek through the gap the mirror would’ve made with the little passage the door was in.
Whatever sound she could’ve made would’ve been drowed out by Krauss freaking out and the commotion at the door. And the fact that she wouldn’t have been noticed, coupled with the fact that she knew Genji would come back to finish her off if she simply did nothing, pretty much ensured that she would try going for broke and reaching for the gun. Alternatively, you could argue the conditions of the game included her not being allowed to make any noises or something of the sort.
Regarding the other comments:
My idea of a reliable observer is one that makes no omission when it comes to events themselves as they are playing out. Beyond that, any thoughts and genuine surprises the narrator lets the reader in should serve as a way of the narrator letting the player into their genuine emotions, and more or less telling the player whether or not there’s something fishy going on with those specific events. Since Krauss indeed was innocent and omitted nothing regarding the actual events, I can’t personally consider him unreliable. And even then, I can’t particularly think of a point where him going “well, shit, they know about Shannon”. Even when the detective accused him, I think it’s more natural, as someone as prideful and emotionally devastated as he was, to be more questioning the absurdity of the general overall accusation rather than have him reflect on the whole affair. And even then, keep in mind that the entire story was basically being written by Krauss as him representing the story to a third party. And given his situation, I can’t imagine him writing about his affair so openly. Is it misdirection? Perhaps, but not one I consider a breach of the player’s trust. I do admit there was a game where I did stretch it, but I’ve never resorted to a flat-out misrepresentation of the situation or the basic chain of events.
Nah, the image in the background of Aftermath is actually just Black Battler, who I threw in for shits and giggles because of the fact the suspicion was initially so hard on Battler’s shoulders, and figured it’d be neat. Plus, y’know. Black Battler. The inclusion of Virgilius was me just throwing in something I found interesting while reading about what Land could’ve been.
Regarding the drop-down thing, it’s something I learned myself recently. When making the post, click the little options gear and select ‘hide details’. That’ll give you a block to work with.
Regarding Rune’s point…
While it’s true it couldn’t have been completely silenced, I imagined all the doors and windows would’ve been closed, it would’ve been significantly less noticable than the gunshot Jessica had fired off. Not an ideal explanation, admittedly, as I wasn’t actually aware of that (I once saw a silencer attached to something that looked like a revolver in Payday 2 and thought “oh alright good enough”).
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