Welcome back, DCA recruits! Following our 1.02 hotfix containing some critical bug fixes, we’ve been working on multiple larger updates for new features, quality-of-life adjustments and sorting some smaller bugs. Primarily, we wanted to listen to your feedback closely and figure out how to make the game better for everyone.
However – updates take time! While the team design, program and test these ideas, we wanted to explain what’s expected over the coming months in as much detail as possible. Some small details might change over development, but this is a general scope of what’s coming up for Murder Mystery Machine.
Replaying scenes
A lot of you want to replay scenes, to either check out elements you missed or improve your score to an A+ for those costume unlocks we all crave. We understand – being met with a low rank and no way to improve it can be frustrating, especially combined with any problems related to what we’re helping below. However, this isn’t as easy as you might think; MMM is a narrative experience combined with a puzzling one, and isn’t designed to be replayed over and over within the same scene. So, here’s a compromise we came up with:
You will be able to replay scenes, after that full episode is complete. If you’ve completed an episode and moved onto another (e.g. episode 2 to 3), you can access the MMM in the office to find previous scenes, view your ranks, and play them again. Happy hunting!
Mindmap changes
One of the repeated comments from players was confusion over correct deductions. “I think I got it right because something flashed up about dialogue, but then I lost what it was!” you might have said, or “I got a low rank, but didn’t know there were more deductions! How am I supposed to know there’s more?” So, we’re adding:
- Deduction counters: fairly self-explanatory, this keeps track of your correct deductions made, and how many are left to go. Keeps you on track, and confirms your suspicions.
- Confirmed links: if you get a correct deduction, the link will become a solid, unbroken line to signify this is the right connection. Reduces confusion and allows you to move onto everything else.
- Pop-up changes: the ‘new dialogue’ pop-up will now remain on screen until the player exits so they don’t miss it, and we’re reducing the size of tip pop-ups so they don’t cover the mindmap or get in the way.
Deduction counters and confirmed links will be an optional setting in our menu as it changes/simplifies the evidence mindmap, and we don’t want to interrupt or change the game for existing players. Many like it as it is, and that’s fine!
Hint changes
A few players found themselves either accidentally hitting the hint button, or clicking it thinking it’s something else. Or they’re unaware hints lower their score, and get frustrated at that. We’ll be adjusting the UX/UI around hints to make all of this crystal clear. Including:
- Changing the icon: a magnifying glass can work for hints, but also general detective work which caused some misclicks. We’ll be adjusting this to look more hinty (hint-like?).
- Adding confirmation step: you’ll now be met with a confirmation window explaining that this is a hint and will reduce your rank if you use it. Stops misclicks, and keeps everything clear!
Score ranking
We’ve spoken about rank in all of the previous sections, so let’s look at it shall we? Some players remarked that the ranking system was either unfair, confusing, or frustrating. We believe some of these frustrations are fixed by what’s mentioned previously: better understanding of hints, easier deduction info, being able to replay scenes to improve score.
However, we want to do better. So, here's what we plan to be changing. Ranks themselves must stay the same, as the costume unlocks in relation to an A+ rank are part of achievements, something that can’t be taken out or adjusted easily. But we think this can be helped with some simple re-shuffling of info, and some changes to what affects ranks.
Our plan is to make failed attempts and hints used the only factors contributing to your rank. If you’ve reached that screen, you’ve made a successful submission, and if you did it first time without any help, you should get rewarded! Worry not though completionists – all the stats are still included, so if you want to make sure no stone is unturned, turn away!
With this change, there will also be a redesign of the ranking UI to reflect these changes. With failed attempts and hints used compiled with your rank and extra statistics below, we hope this makes things crystal clear regarding what affects your rank and how to improve it. We’re also removing the detective rating at the top, as we want to focus on the rank as the main landmark of success and progress. We can't show an image of what this looks like yet unfortunately, as our design isn't final.
Bug fixes
Of course, we can’t forget good ol’ bugs. Here are some of the bugs reported that we’re working on a fix for over the coming weeks:
- New evidence sometimes appears off-screen
- Case file error at ending (incorrect arrest/did not arrest confirmation)
- Office audio overlaps with trailer at Episode 2
- Lighting bleeds over edges of some crime scenes
- Lighting too bright during Episode 7 scenes
We need your help
We couldn’t have had these ideas and understood how to improve Murder Mystery Machine better without your reviews, discussion posts, comments, Discord feedback, and tweets. Now we’ve laid our cards on the table: what do you think? Will this improve your game, fix your problems? Or have we missed something? Let us know.
Also, we’re always on the hunt for bugs. If something is missing from the previous list it’s either a console bug (we’re sticking to PC for Steam!), we’ve fixed it already, or we don’t know about it. Let us know on our Discord, in the comments, discussion boards, tweeting/DMing @BlazingGGames, or by emailing [email protected].
Keep up the good work detectives!
Harry Mitchell
Community Manager