Local Lab Rat Solves a Mass Murder
Couldn’t sleep again. I do sleep, for what’s worth – just not when most people should.
So, to pass the time, I played The Crimson Debt, an entry for The Case of the Thinky Jam game jam. The entry was made by Themis, known for The Zodiac Trial and The Divine Deception, the latter of which I particularly liked.
The game is essentially about a human lab rat escaping his basement after decades and coming across a mass murder scene in the mansion above. You have to figure out who the victims are, how they died and why they died, all from the evidence on-scene and their audio diary entries left behind.
The game has two modes – the Curated and Purist mode. One is, to my understanding, more traditional in the sense that the game kind of helps you along on your journey to find the truth. In the latter, you’re left to piece together everything on your own.
Naturally, being the Ultimate Detective, I went with the Purist option. From a gameplay perspective, this basically meant the only tool to figure out how close to the truth I was was the ‘Intuition’ mechanic – for each of the victims, I’d be told how right my guess was (on the money, fairly close, still have a lot to learn, or just off-mark). You get 3 uses of those before the game leaves you on your own, and you have to submit your findings.
I thought it would be fun to keep two files – one for the actual notes I was taking, and one for a kind of “diary” of my thoughts and theories as I played the game, just to see how solvable the game is in purist mode. I’m including the “diary” below (since the notes are kind of messy and maybe trivialize some of the information you’re supposed to extract from the game yourself). Note that it’s unlikely to make sense unless you played the game yourself, which you should definitely do. It’s good! The game also features an impossible crime or two! (Or maybe even three! I won’t spoil it for you! Yet!)
Or you could read along as you play! I always specify where I’m moving to. (Note that your own detective experience could be ruined depending on how right my theories are while I’m playing.)
It also means that everything below should be considered spoilers. DO NOT read on if you haven’t played the game yourself, because I can’t guarantee I go out of my way to have this make sense to someone who hasn’t played it.
1:54 AM Okay, starting two files. One for actual game notes, one to keep track of my thoughts as I’m actually playing the game. Should be fine. Definitely won’t result in me going completely insane.
2:05 AM Stumbled out of the cage and found a dead guy (Charming Man) in the parlor. Read through the scene (taking a little more time since I’m taking notes, I guess). It’s already interesting – he was hit and strangled, but there’s also a recording suggesting he was knocked out(?) while he was alive, right after finding a body… There’s also a murder weapon near the corpse. Was he hit twice? I figure that’d be mentioned somehow, though. Was he hit when he was knocked out, and then been one who did the hitting, collapsing afterwards? It’d make the blood consistent, I guess. But probably too early to say. I figure I’ll be collecting recordings from the other victims to assemble a timeline.
2:09 AM Damn. Lotta rooms.
2:09 AM Oh, okay. Chose the kitchen first. Protag said nothing stood out. Room == searched. LMAO
2:09 AM Living room too?
2:10 AM Found Tall Woman’s dead body in the safe room.
2:23 AM Let’s see… Tall Woman was stabbed with a dagger. There’s signs that the panic room was sealed since there’s an orange smell on the button. But if that happened, Doc (or someone who knows Doc well enough) would’ve had to have entered the code to deactivate it. I wonder if Professor Cosmo is actually Doc? Cosmo is a woman… I can’t remember if Doc was ever referred to as man or woman explicitly. No, wait – Charming Man referred the “Great Doc” as a “he”.
Anyway, the fact that these researchers had a competitor called “MemorAI” probably means that the research was related to human memory. Probably suggests the protag’s own memory is messed up. The “AI” part might be preserving if not transferring human memory? Still probably too early to properly speculate.
2:29 AM Onto the study.
2:30 AM Doc’s body in the center of the room. Definitely a “him”.
2:42 AM Doc was hanged, at least judging by the noose around his neck. The study door has an auto-lock, and the key was on the body (unlikely to be planted). Door is currently broken down.
The first deduction should more or less be obvious. On the back of Doc’s neck, there’s a thin cut. Charming Man’s body had a box cutter with a little bit of blood on its edge. This suggests it was Charming Man who cut him down. The Chloroform rag must’ve been what the culprit used to knock him out. The culprit must’ve been hiding as one of the suits of armor (at some point?), which was left discarded.
After that, “Ally” and Dr. Wegener broke the study door down to get him out.
There’s an odd question here, though. Why would the culprit have hidden in the suit of armor if all he had to do was leave with the auto-lock? I guess the answer would be that the culprit was still in the room when the door was knocked down, eliminating Ally and Wagener as suspects. The culprit, for example, might not have known about the auto-lock system at all and thus thought he had no choice.
2:46 AM Oh God there’s more rooms upstairs.
2:47 AM Into the lab. No corpses.
2:51 AM Looks like some kind of a struggle happened here. There’s a trail of blood that eventually stops at a counter. Whoever was wounded patched themselves up? It might be the person that ended up finishing Charming Man off.
The bottle of paralyzing poison found in the lab is interesting. In her recordings, Tall Woman talked about finding something to get rid of her husband – something she had to dispose of after a body search following a theft. This could be it.
I’m now getting a different idea of Charming Man’s testimony.
Let’s suppose that Charming Man killed Doc. There’s a chance he simply lied in the recordings to spruce up his crime. He finds the discarded poison, laces the tip of the box cutter with it and nips the Doc’s neck to paralyze him. He then pulls the Doc’s body to hang and arranges the scene to make it look like he was knocked out (arranging the chloroform, the skeleton key and the suit of armor).
Obviously, though, there’s still the question of who ended up getting rid of him in the end… but there’s another explanation here, too – suppose that the voice on Charming Man’s watch isn’t his own, but the killer’s, recorded after the Charming Man had been killed, in order to seal the illusion?
2:55 AM Nothing in the library.
2:56 AM Nothing in the Guest Room.
2:57 AM The Empty Room appears to be a locked room. A woman face down on the floor.
3:20 AM The woman was probably stabbed beforehand and locked herself in. She probably fought with the killer in the Lab and injured them, running away into the empty room with a scalpel in her. She locked herself in and died. Classic, simple, clean.
Everything else is fucked.
But let’s try and assemble the facts. Here’s how I’m doing with the names and identities as of right now:
- Dr. Darr
- Dr. Faraday -> Woman -> Brunette? -> Ally [according to Doc, Faraday caused the mess; if not Emma, must be Ally]
- Dr. Fleming -> Emma [only other candidate for Fred’s EF]
- Dr. Wegener
- Dr. Feyman -> Charming Man -> Philip [Philip can’t be Doc, Feyman was listed as obvious suspect – only makes sense if he was alone; he was alone because Cosmo wasn’t there; Philip’s partner was Cosmo]
- Great Doc -> Robert?
- Prof Cosmo [Not a doctor?] -> Woman, Elderly… But also young?
On this last note… I’d assumed Cosmo was elderly because of something Tall Woman said in her recordings, about her “getting up in her years”, and “dying soon”. But that creates an issue, since apparently, Brunette’s recordings suggest she was actually youngest in age. But if Cosmo is just sick and being used as a test subject, there’s no problem.
Cosmo could either be the protagonist (who forgot) or the other test subject Doc was planning to prepare a second cage for.
Order of events seems to be that Tall Woman (Emma) was found in the safe room first. The Safe Room was locked using the button, causing the emergency state. The room was apparently searched and nobody was found hiding.
Furthermore, earlier examination of the safe room proved you couldn’t just press the button and run out of it. So some kind of a timed mechanism could’ve been used.
Second body found would’ve been Doc. Darr goes missing at this point. The only new information for this death would be that you can peek into the room from the Empty Room above – but it’s a very thin slit.
Anyhow, Fred is the killer, apparently.
As for the other stuff… there was a bottle of painkillers in the Brunette’s purse. These could actually be what the Tall Woman hid during the body search.
3:44 AM Oh, I just realized I missed one location – outside. Large Man. A single trail of footprints in the mud lead to his corpse.
3:46 AM Oh, Large Man is outside, having been stabbed to death. He has a bite mark on his leg. There’s also a burned plastic bag with a bloodied glove. The stench coming from the fireplace is probably from the burned rubber then. Someone tried disposing of bloody gloves.
The bite mark makes me think something I’ve also been suspecting for a little while now – that the protagonist, Cosmo or both aren’t actually human. There’s a weird focus on the protagonist’s sense of smell, and there’s something definitely odd about Professor Cosmo and the way the others talk about her. There’s also the fact that the protagonist gets into the locked room in the Empty Room using their “bare feet”. Weird movement.
Suppose, for example, that, at the very least, Cosmo is a chimp.
The Safe Room locked room could be explained if the culprit manipulated Cosmo into sealing the room – they placed an orange on the button to get Cosmo to press it, and then had left a Lemon under one of the tables so they can hide it. If you assume Darr, one of the people who searched room, for example, pretended nobody was there, he would be the obvious suspect – making him Fred.
If you assume Fred is the dead body outside, then his killer would be Ally, who died in her locked room… Fred would’ve been the one to kill Charming Man.
But there’s some things that don’t make sense about this. If the dead man outside is Fred, then why was he found holding a bag he had (seemingly) pulled from the fireplace? Why would he save the evidence he would’ve wanted to destroy?
The other question is… why was Charming Man strangled and struck?
Finally – I’m still apparently(?) missing someone? At least one more body should be somewhere around, unless the Great Doc is one of the people listed. But if Feyman woke up in the study when the Doc’s body was found, then neither Darr nor Wegener fit the bill.
Does that mean there was no body when Feyman woke up? If so, the missing person can be patched if you assume that Great Doc is Darr or Wegener.
Then maybe I’m wrong – the dead man doesn’t need to be Darr. Maybe the Great Doc is Darr.
The mistake was in assuming that Feyman waking up in the study was when Doc’s body was found. But what if Feyman woke up in the study, got out (which he could do since the study lock can be opened from the inside – there’s no reason for the people outside to break it down at all, now that I think about it), and then, after they left, they came back, broke the door down and found the Doc’s body?
When Feyman was found, Emma would’ve been dead, Cosmo would’ve been missing… so the only person Doc can be is Darr.
Darr was hiding in the study when Feyman woke up. After they left, he left the suit of armor and hung himself.
Therefore:
- Dr. Darr -> Doc -> Robert
- Dr. Faraday -> Woman -> Brunette -> Ally
- Dr. Fleming -> Emma
- Dr. Wegener -> Fred
- Dr. Feyman -> Charming Man -> Philip
- Prof Cosmo -> Female; Likely not Human
Understanding all this, we can try deducing the following:
- Ally stole something from Emma (pocketwatch, most likely), which Doc wanted to get back.
- Doc organized dinner party.
- Doc tries to retrieve pocket watch from Ally; fails.
- Doc kills Emma in the Safe Room; uses Cosmo (non-human) to hit the button and hide.
- Doc knocks Philip out to stop him from calling the cops. He drags him to the study, leaves him there, himself hiding in a suit of armor.
- He waits until Philip is found and everyone leaves before hanging himself. The evidence he did this would be his last recording. The point of this trick was him trying to make sure everyone else is together shortly before he hangs himself, ensuring nobody else can go down for the crime.
- The group knocks the door down, finding Doc’s corpse.
- Philip cuts Doc’s body down using the box cutter, nipping the back of Doc’s neck.
- While getting the body down, the thing in the ceiling(?) Doc had used to hang himself (the thing with the bronze plate) is now left lying around as a weapon.
- Ally assumes Fred is the culprit and the two have an altercation in the Lab.
- Ally goes upstairs, locks herself in and dies from her injuries.
- Fred patches himself up and goes downstairs and sees that Philip is there and rubber gloves are being burned in the fireplace. He assumes Philip is the killer and attacks him with the “object”.
- Fred salvages the latex gloves from the fire, trying to use them as evidence to clear his name later, potentially.
- Cosmo arrives at the scene and bites Fred’s leg, causing him to flee the mansion.
…But that doesn’t work. What happened to Cosmo?
Maybe the protagonist is Cosmo? Maybe the protagonist forgets his actions as ‘Cosmo’ due to the experiments? If so, who locks the cage at the end?
4:25 AM Alright, let’s try putting together an explanation and just see what happens, I guess.
- Darr –> Suicide / Study / Guilt –> Off the Mark
- Faraday –> Murder / Wegener / Empty Room / Self-Defense (Misunderstanding) –> Fairly Off
- Feyman –> Murder / Wegener / Parlor / Justice –> Reasonably
- Fleming –> Murder / Darr / Safe Room / Silence the Truth –> Much to Learn
- Wegener –> Murder / Faraday / Outside / Self-Defense –> Almost there
- Cosmo –> Still Alive / Basement [Assumption is it’s the player] –> Far from the Truth
Let’s see…
I guess it was too much to hope for Darr being suicide. But since I’m sure Doc was Darr, I’m going to assume some kind of a mechanical trick was at play here. Let’s say that the culprit is actually Philip. He intentionally staged himself being found by Ally and Fred and made sure to give himself an alibi. He’d paralyzed Doc ahead of time by putting paralysis poison on the box cutter. He then stuffed him in the suit of armor, wrapped a noose around the neck and ran it to the ceiling, attaching it to the “object” in the ceiling (i imagine the wheels can rotate if you press the switch – basically a Segway). He then put a large black cloth over the wall to hide the noose reaching for the ceiling.
After he’s found, Philip goes to the Empty room above and activates the mechanism through the slit in the floor. The ceiling moves, the body is pulled out from the suit of armor and to the center of the room. As the “object” is moving, it eventually tips over from the ceiling beams, causing the body to fall to the ground – explaining why the rope was never explicitly cut – and breaking the wheel off the “object”.
Alternatively it’s easier to just think of it as “Mechanism X” – the point is that Philip was the one who suspiciously insisted that they go back to the study, so if the body was magically reintroduced at some point, coupled with the box cutter and everything, it’s likely that he did it.
I don’t really know where I went wrong with Faraday besides the motive to be that far off… Did I mix them up? Is Faraday <–> Fleming? I guess my evidence assigning one over the other was pretty weak to begin with.
Cosmo might’ve thrown in the fireplace… That might’ve been what Ally was talking about when she said she saw what Fred did to “them”. So maybe Wegener is responsible for Feyman and Cosmo dying in the parlor.
- Darr –> Murder / Feyman / Study / Revenge –> Close to truth
- Faraday –> Murder / Darr / Safe Room / Silence the Truth –> Fairly Off
- Feyman –> Murder / Wegener / Parlor / Revenge –> Solved
- Fleming –> Murder / Wegener / Empty Room / Self-Defense (Misunderstanding) –> Much to learn
- Wegener –> Murder / Fleming / Outside / Self-Defense –> Solved
- Cosmo –> Murder / Wegener / Parlor / Self-Defense –> Solved
For what it’s worth, I’m cycling motives between Revenge, Silencing the Truth and Self-Defense. I don’t really feel like motive should’ve been required since there’s… kind of little to go off of and a lot of options. If it was structured to be one of three or one of four options it probably would’ve been easier. For example, what’s the difference between “Revenge” and “Justice” in the context of the story?
Since I’ve solved Wegener’s death, I’m at least certain I now correctly know Faraday and Fleming. So Faraday was definitely the one in the Safe Room. Since I’m still off, I’ve probably got the murderer wrong. There’s a good chance that Feyman was behind that, too.
Come to think of it – him being the one to do it would explain why Cosmo disappeared while paired up with him. The same method that worked for Darr worked for him, too, since he was one of the only two people who searched the room.
I have no idea what to do about Ally, though. She’s definitely the person in the Empty Room, at least.
5:25 AM Okay, I went and re-examined Ally’s corpse, and I’d forgotten about the burns on her face. Protag explicitly lists them as painful. If she took the painkillers in her purse, she would’ve been indirectly killed by Emma by accident.
- Darr –> Murder / Feyman / Study / Revenge –> Close to truth
- Faraday –> Murder / Feyman / Safe Room / Revenge –> Close to truth
- Feyman –> Murder / Wegener / Parlor / Revenge –> Solved
- Fleming –> Accident / Faraday / Empty Room –> Solved
- Wegener –> Murder / Fleming / Outside / Self-Defense –> Solved
- Cosmo –> Murder / Wegener / Parlor / Self-Defense –> Solved
Damn, I’m good.
That’s all my intuition gone. But I guess I’ll reload an earlier save and see if I can figure out what I need to change about Darr and Faraday’s to also be on the money.
5:28 AM Okay, ended up getting it. I guess Philip might’ve accidentally found the Protag in the basement and decided Doc and Emma had to be punished for keeping a live person in the basement?
5:35 AM Oh, it was a magnet.
Anyhow, great entry! Especially since it was seemingly written in a day.
I will say that in Purist mode, the Intuition system definitely turned it less into a process of hardline deduction and more a process of elimination – while I still had to explain my answers to myself, there was definitely a sense where I knew I was right or wrong based on feedback and could work my way backwards to construct the narrative.
But I can’t really think of an easy way to do it any other way besides devising some kind of a system for explaining to the player why they’re wrong… but if the player is just putting together nonsense or contradicting evidence, there’s not much you can do there, either. Plus, trying to account for every combination is just impossible.
So, overall, a good time!