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Mystery-o-matic.com random murder generator is open-source
- galapago 3y agoI'm the main developer behind mystery-o-matic, happy to take questions and feedback regarding its engine here!
- MrLeap 3y agoThis is cool. What was your motivation?
- galapago 3y agoI wanted to create an alternative to murdle.com (which is very good, btw!) and learn a little bit of about web technology
- HPsquared 3y agoWhile we're at it, what were the means and opportunity?
- galapago 3y agoWhat do you mean exactly?
- buzzy_hacker 3y agoThey’re joking. The cliché in criminal investigations is the suspect needs means, motive, and opportunity to commit the crime. You gave motive, so means and opportunity remain.
- galapago 3y agoThanks!, I know that cliché, but I tend to take comments too literal :)
- LVB 3y agoCan you explain a bit more how Ethereum fits in “for obtaining a random mystery prompt and its solution”?
- galapago 3y agoEthereum as a platform is not really used, but Solidity smart contracts simulated inside a testing tool. Check my explanation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38422232 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38422232
- GlassOwAter 3y agoWould it fairly easily port to a blockchain? And would you be interested in bringing it to Evmos?
- galapago 3y agoDepends on what you want exactly, but I think it should be straightforward. Please use the contact form so we can continue this conversation: https://forms.gle/dvA4Wr8LiuHFmDZN7 https://forms.gle/dvA4Wr8LiuHFmDZN7
- foundry27 3y agoReally cool experience! :) Having been cheerfully awarded the sleuth-o-matic rank of Barely Conscious (the murderer was was clear, the precise weapon+time wasn’t) I was wondering: is the mystery generator implemented in such a way that there’s enough “metagaming cues” in the clues to allow someone clever to get a good score on ALL generated mysteries? For context: my partner correctly solved today’s mystery seven clues earlier than I did, and she explained that her answer was based on the fact that that 1. In literature certain weapons are predominantly associated with killers of particular genders, and 2. Killers will try to minimize their time spent at crime scenes to reduce the risk of detection, so if the murderer was found there, it’s probable that the murder was recent. I was suitably impressed, but I’d be curious to know if human psychology and behavior patterns in literature are actually taken into account for the mysteries.
- galapago 3y ago> Having been cheerfully awarded the sleuth-o-matic rank of Barely Conscious (the murderer was was clear, the precise weapon+time wasn’t) I was wondering: is the mystery generator implemented in such a way that there’s enough “metagaming cues” in the clues to allow someone clever to get a good score on ALL generated mysteries? Well, the mystery generation is stochastic (where some of them will be more complex and difficult, while other ones are simpler) and the scoring is still under development (it usually very difficult to get a good score). Expect some changes in the near future to make the score more adaptative and fair. > For context: my partner correctly solved today’s mystery seven clues earlier than I did, and she explained that her answer was based on the fact that that 1. In literature certain weapons are predominantly associated with killers of particular genders, and 2. Killers will try to minimize their time spent at crime scenes to reduce the risk of detection, so if the murderer was found there, it’s probable that the murder was recent. > I was suitably impressed, but I’d be curious to know if human psychology and behavior patterns in literature are actually taken into account for the mysteries. Assumption 1 is incorrect, all the weapons are randomly assigned so it was a lucky guess (however, it is an interesting one to make, so I will think about it to include it in the future..). Assumption 2 is .. actually correct. The mystery generation has a "minimization" procedure, where the actual input (the action from every agent) are reduced while keeping the murder mystery. This will indirectly, tend to make this assumption true. Thanks for your feedback, it was really interesting.
- rmccue 3y agoI'm not sure exactly what happened, but there's definitely some sort of bug - I entered what I was certain was the correct info and got the "incorrect" phrase. Rechecked about 100% times using all clues and still the same. Switched to a different browser and entered the same answers and... it said correct. Might be because I clicked through to either the sleuth-o-meter or the how to play and then hit back? I also filled in the example table on the how-to-play. (Also, glad I'm not going crazy!)
- galapago 3y agoI suspect there is a bug in the selector. I need to investigate. Thanks for the report!
- op00to 3y agoThis is cool! I would like to a look and see if I can build something a little simpler for my kid that uses characters he likes. Some day… Thank you!
- tabitech 3y agoYep, looks cool to me.
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y agoA Solidity smart contract that doesn't involve cryptocurrency. I've never heard of such a thing. Very cool
- galapago 3y agoIt was used because of the nature of blockchain transactions as operations, but everything is simulated so no cryptocurrency is involved. Instead, every transaction represents a possible state change in the murder mystery (e.g. Alice walks from the Kitchen to the Bathroom). If the state change breaks any rule (e.g. let's say no more than two characters in the same room), then the transaction reverts and the fuzzing tool keeps exploring. Edit: I guess an expanded version of this should be in the README
- barbariangrunge 3y agoAnyone have a link to examples?
- k1t 3y agohttps://mystery-o-matic.com/ https://mystery-o-matic.com/
- shlip 3y agoFun fact about mystery-o-matic.com, and I suspect the HTML page generated with linked software : with JS disabled, you are able to see all clues "for free". When you don't know what the UI ought to look like, you just read them before realizing you're not supposed to.
- galapago 3y agoThis is correct, JS should be enabled to play :). The alternative is using a server to get clues which I want to avoid (the website is a single, static html). This enabled to play offline as well.
- 8organicbits 3y agoYou can probably hide those with a `display: none` via CSS and remove it with Javascript. People with poor connections may fail to load the JS, or see the clues until JS finally loads.
- galapago 3y agoGood catch, thanks a lot!
- fapweoifjaoiw 3y ago[flagged]
- breadchris 3y agoI have been running a murder mystery competition where you solve cyber security challenges for the past 7 years[1]. We come up with a story and then build an evidence graph for competitors to traverse. Challenges can be as simple as a Caesar cipher, or more involved like analyzing a clone of Twitter for clues. The challenge infrastructure is all defined with configs and gets deployed automatically to kubes. It is all open source too if you want to check it out[2]. [1] https://mcpshsf.com/ https://mcpshsf.com/ [2] https://github.com/xctf-io/chalgen https://github.com/xctf-io/chalgen