I absolutely love games like Her Story, Hypnospace Outlaw and The Roottrees are Dead, so in the new case I’m working on, I wanted to try my hand at search mechanics. In case you’re not familiar with these games (you should go play them, they’re awesome!), this is how they work. You have access to some kind of database, whether it’s the “internet” or a collection of interrogation videos. You have to type in keywords to search through the database which gives you access to some new information and therefore more keywords to search for.

This loop of searching for information, finding new information and using it to get more information can be incredibly satisfying but I kind of wanted to try something a little bit different. One of my favorite moments in Her Story was - Spoilers! Skip to the next paragraph if you haven’t played the game! - figuring out what question was being asked based on the answer the character gave in one of the interrogation videos. Up to this point, I was only using search keywords that were directly spoken by her but in this case I got to search for something that wasn’t explicitly mentioned but rather implied. It’s possible that I would’ve got that keyword eventually anyway through other videos but for me, figuring out that keyword without it actually being spoken out loud was such a cool moment!

So I’ve been playing around with the idea of intentional search, in which you have to do some sleuthing even before you type in your search keywords. For example, a puzzle in which you have to figure out which toll bridge the victim crossed but you’ll need to narrow down the date and time, and come up with a searching strategy so you don’t have to check the toll records too many times.

In another puzzle, the crux lies in interpreting search results rather than figuring out the correct keywords. You know the goulash that the victim had for lunch had ingredient X in it but not Y. Figure out why it couldn’t have had X or why it must have had Y in it.

I always enjoy a map puzzle, so I decided to add one. You get to search for any address or location in the map but trial and error won’t get you anywhere. All searches must be intentional and search results will only seem meaningful if you know what you are looking for.

As a side note, I’ve found that building these puzzles poses an interesting challenge of making the world seem real. Since you’re allowed to search for pretty much anything, the results have to seem somewhat realistic. In the map, for example, I wanted a reasonably large number of addresses (I think it’s 2000+ addresses right now) but I obviously couldn’t set the location of each address manually. Randomly placing them was also no good, because you’d want a particular bakery or an office at the same location every time you searched for it. Also, some addresses should always be close to each other like house number 25 should be somewhere near house number 26. Ensuring no addresses fell in the middle of any major roads was another concern. So it took some tweaking around to come up with a realistic map that I was happy with.

In the end, I guess I’ve ended up with something completely different from what originally inspired me. These puzzles are more about coming up with theories and using the search mechanics to either confirm or reject them. I have a couple more puzzles left to design in this case and I still might add one that’s a more “traditional” search puzzle. A library may or may not be involved.

Thanks for reading! Cheers!