After developing and releasing 3 “Murder Is Game Over” titles in 2 years, I’ve had some time to pause and reflect on what I like most about each one. These are my thoughts on the series as a whole.
Best exploration – Murder Is Game Over
My initial concept for this game was to have a murder mystery that emphasized exploration much more inspired by RPGs than adventure games. In hindsight, the world design from the first game was well done in terms of giving the player freedom to move around the world at their choosing. The map shape is based on a series of interconnecting circles including the castle's ground floor, connecting the second floor and the sealed wing, and finally, a secret passage connecting the castle to the surrounding countryside. The method of murder also relies heavily on the way the map makes a seemingly inaccessible area easy to reach through a clever shortcut. Not only is the exploration mechanic effective for the player, but it also serves as part of the storytelling and narrative.
Which game in the series has my favorite villain? Find out in part 2 coming next!
I'm creating the fourth game in the series. Please wishlist it (link below). Thank you for your support!
Matt
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Let's talk about characters, dialogs and story of the game today.
The whole story was created as B-movie class plot. I'm not a professional writer, so I didn't overestimate my strength with this.
As I told in older Articles the story inspired by anime and manga, so we have not so ordinary schoolboy comes in not so ordinary Academy and participates in not so ordinary events.
I don’t know whether is this an ordinary situation...
The story pretty standard, but I tried to add likable characters and logic in whole situation even taking into account that the main theme is pretty crazy. But even so, I wanted to make sure there were as few weird decisions and situations out of nowhere in story as possible.
Meet Samantha! Your friend and comrade.
Initially, the story had many different characters and side story events. But after some time, it became clear that I will not be able to implement such a scale due to lack of resources.
Also, the main story did not imply a long time of events, for simple logical reasons. That’s why the whole story completes in 7 in-game days. Also only few characters make their way in final edit (but I think others will have their appearance in the future... in other games...)
Also, due to the fact that the story unfolds quite rapidly, I had to reveal the characters so that they do not pour out all the secrets of their souls on the second day of acquaintance.
So I tried to fit all information needed in casual dialogs and their actions. Also some characters can tell you more about others. So the player should have pretty clear understanding of each character in story.
After completing most missions or before the start of them, the player gets to the shooting range, where he can talk to the characters, replenish ammunition or change weapons. Also you can try your weapons on hologram targets there.
“I should go” is always a choice.
The other important thing is a dialog choice. The story is presented as a visual novel with dialogs between the characters. I didn't want to make a player just a dumb dummy, so I made a dialog system that player can choose his lines. It’s not much but it’s much better then speechless protagonist, for me, at least.
Also, the choice that the player makes during the dialogues, allows you to learn more about the world of the game, and about the characters.
And it also affects the epilogue of history. But I'm not going to give you any more details on this, because it's better to find out for yourself, isn't it?
I can only say that the idea of side stories fits in perfectly with the post-main events.
That's all for today, thanks for your time!
Release day has come! And first update too.
Hello everyone! Today is a special day, the game is finally here!
Two years of work and finally the time has come. It was a long time. Lots of things happened, but the result is here. Finally!
You can get it on Steam right now =)
For this date I prepare new release trailer for you, you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/GF_nosmN95A
This game is my first experience in development of big games (by my standards, of course =). And I think it was worth it.
Also I would like to think it’s not the last, I have pretty much ideas for future projects =)
So, stay tuned!
And big thanks to everyone who was looking for this game and read all my Dev Notes and wrote me feedback! I believe you will like the game and will have a nice time with it.
I am looking forward to hear your thought on the game in the Steam community group. I will try to read all of it =)
Small tunes and additions.
Also because of your feedback there were some changes made and additions to the final game.
Lever Action Rifle. As rightly noted, it would be cool to have one of these. And I thought, I don't have one? Why? So I added one =)
Story Mode + After the game completion you can start over with all unlocked weapons in the story and play again with other diversity of enemies on the levels.
More difficulity levels to Story Mode. As several people noted there was little challenge for them in the story. So I added more options for people who wants problems right from the start!
More game options. Several people wanted blood to stay on the floor, so I added this feature. But you can disable it if you want, also explosions burnmarks and bullet shells to keep floor clear.
Dash effect. Also some people wanted more clear visual indication that player uses dash move. So I added this effect for them, also you can disable it.
Soundtrack.
Also you can buy awesome soundtrack for the game too, if you want to support me additionally and authors of this music!
There are 11 tracks from the game: 01. First Contact
02. On the Move
03. On the Move (Vocal)
04. Advancing
05. Heavy Duty
06. Heat
07. Nice Day
08. Melancholy
09. Intruder
10. Tension
11. Marching Onward
All tracks are in .wav format and were written by IK-Sound, great guys and it was pleasure to work with.
And once again, thanks to everyone who made this possible to get the game to its release!
With best regards,
Roman.
Dev Note 6
Good day everyone
Today, I want to tell you about levels and map design.
We talked about weapons and what to shoot at, but we didn't talk about where we are going to do this.
Because main focus of the game is on shooting and action, I started from thinking about interesting places to fight and then connect them with the setting of the game.
Then removed those maps that I could not implement for technical reasons. And only after that, I started to think about story to connect them between.
I think you will find this template a bit familiar.
The basis of the gameplay is not about linear movement through the level and killing everything on pre-prepared positions but more of arena based shooter. Like you cleared one area, and you moved on to the next.
This decision was made based on the fact that this approach requires less resources and I can use same props on different levels. Because of my limited artistic talents, I was unable to translate many interesting ideas into levels.
To somehow compensate for this and make the levels visually different, I did the levels with the obligatory use of some individual elements. Like floor pattern and some props that are exclusive for current level.
All maps are designed as arena with different interesting spots on it. Like you can see on the of one of the earliest maps “Café”.
We have a common area for visitors. It has long distances and open spaces.
Kitchen area. With more tight space and tables to shoot above.
And storage rooms, with narrow spaces between the shelves and boxes.
All this places provide player with ability to choose a suitable field for the battle.
Also this approach allows player to play again and have different experience and I could use most of the maps in survival mode with additional refinements (like additional covers, to break long line of fire).
Because this game is about improvisation and constant movement all maps have no deadlocks and in every part of the map at least 2 passes, so player can be always on the move. Also its useful for enemies that can bypass player from the side and attack him.
One of the main problems with design was to make a real place feeling. So that the maps do not look just like a set of geometry without practical meaning. That’s why classroom has locker rooms for girls and men, and a limited number of seats for the group.
Dormitory hall has the necessary proportions to accommodate exactly the number of rooms, how many doors there are.
You can believe that this place is from military Academy? Right?
I think all these details are important for player’s immersion even he doesn’t know about it.
That’s all for today, thanks for reading!
Dev Note 5
Greetings everyone!
I will talk about weapon Arsenal. Lots of weapons!
First of all, I have to confess. I love guns.
Shooter is about shooting, right?
One of my first games was Doom and I will never forget chain gun and shotgun from there. I played lots of shooters throughout my entire life.
So shooting mechanics in a shooter game is one of the biggest things for me. If game have weak plot, I can play it, but if shooter has weak gunplay, I can’t. So making nice weapon feeling was important for me even with small resources I had.
Also I like when games give you choice to choose your weapon. Because it minimizes the chance that the player won’t be able to find a weapon to his liking. So I have nearly 70 guns.
Maybe it’s a little overkill for normal player. But who told you that I am a normal? =)
Everyone will find something for himself.
During my gamer life I have a lot of weapons with which I relate some memories. So I wanted them in my game. AUG from CS, M4 from every military shooter, M16+M203 from Predator and lot more.
I did not use the real names of the weapons to avoid any problems with the law. But you will find a lot of well-known weapons here and some not that popular in other games.
You can see classic weapons like Thompson or M16 alongside with modern weapons like HK417 or SCAR.
All weapons are divided into several classes:
Pistols Useless weapon in most games, or just sidearm. I designed pistols so it can be used as main weapon. They are light and powerful. Also they have fast reloading speed. You can complete the whole story with pistols.
Submachine guns Middle ground between ARs and Pistols. They are lightweight, have high DPS and faster reload speed than most of ARs. But their lack of accuracy and moderate firepower quickly consumes ammunition.
Assault rifles Standard workhorse. I think most of players will choose them because they are easier to handle. Therefore, this is the most variable group of weapons.
Battle rifles 7.62 caliber rifles are in this group. These weapons have high damage but low ammo capacity. So you have to shoot precisely. Or you will run out of ammo too quickly.
Machine guns Large ammo box and firepower. They can keep fire pretty long time without reload. But long reload, low mobility and high recoil make this weapon devastating, but dangerous for player himself.
Sniper rifles Precise and deadly. High damage and accuracy make this weapon best to kill special enemies.
Shotguns Close range beast. But unlike most games shotgun effective not only at close range, but also at more serious distances.
Launchers Special weapon. The most difficult to handle. As it requires a more serious approach to the choice of target and moment to attack.
The caliber of the weapon is also taken into account. High caliber rifles have the ability to break through the target and kill several enemies in row.
With great caliber comes great responsibility.
Also some weapons have Laser Sights and under barrel gadgets, like under barrel grenade launcher and shotgun.
40mm grenade launcher never gets old.
When I was working on the weapons, my main goal was to make it useful. So every weapon in the game has purpose, advantages and disadvantages. One weapon hard to use, other more user friendly. But there is no useless weapon. So you can complete the game with standard pistol. If you want it.
That’s all for today, thanks for reading =)
Dev Note 4
Greeting everyone!
Today, I want to talk about Survival Mode of the game.
As you already know from my Dev Notes 1, this mode is heavily inspired by Call of Duty Survival, Zombies and Uncharted Survival.
If you are here to shoot everything and not to read dialogs, your path lies here.
Fight, Shop, Repeat.
Core of this mode is a survival against waves of enemies that become stronger each wave. There are 4 difficulty options available with different waves patterns at each difficulty.
Also the higher the difficulty, the stronger the enemies become.
But they also have higher critical damage multiplier to encourage accurate shooting.
Anyone can find a right level of challenge.
Also you have a Hardcore Mode option there. This mode changes damage for you and enemies so you can kill enemies much faster, also as they can kill you fast too.
You start the game with pistol only and start your way survival. You can find a weapon printer on each level that will give you random weapons like mystery box in CoD Zombies.
You can find this on every level.
Each round has 5 waves with 1 special wave and boss wave. During your survival you will encounter various enemies from lightly armed cadets to heavy troops with assault drones.
These guys like to shoot things...
A special wave is needed in order to bring the player out of the comfort zone.
During SIEGE Wave you need to neutralize a certain number of enemies while in the marked area.
Boss wave throws at you a special enemy like juggernaut to complete the battle on the current level.
After clearing 5th wave you will be sent to the shop, where you can buy weapons, perks, medkits and resupply your ammo. After shopping you will be thrown to the next level to survive on the new playground.
What are you buying stranger?
In Survival mode you will get experience points and raise your Rank. After leveling up you will get more weapons and perks to your Arsenal.
These weapons will start to show in the store and you can get it from weapon printer. We will talk about Arsenal more in the future so I will stop by the Perks first.
You can buy and equip only 3 perks at a time, and also their removal is not free. This decision was made so player have to think twice before buying them and think about his future tactics.
All perks were designed to be helpful for different playstyles.
There are 26 different Perks to aid you in your survival.
You want to run and gun with minigun? Take Strength Perk that gives you additional speed with heavy weapons.
Dying too fast? Get Big Guy or Armor Plate Perk to raise your HP or decrease incoming damage.
Overall Survival mode was made for those who wants an action for half an hour after a hard working day. Is wasn’t developed as addition to Story Mode, it was designed as complete standalone experience. So you can play it even without Story Mode completely (But I still would recommend you to start from there for training, at least =)
That’s all for today, thanks for reading =)
Also check out my Twitter and Tumblr for latest news:
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Dev Note 3
Good day everyone!
Let's talk about gameplay and some other related mechanics.
From the start of the project I decided to make quite a simple system without complex control scheme.
Everything that have no reason to be controlled by player was thrown out, so no need to pick resources on the ground by special button or anything like that during combat.
At first I had an idea to add different equipment, godets and other things, but making additional active elements makes controls more complex and ruins flow for me, that’s why I decided to stop with standard abilities for player. My main focus was on moving and shooting, so everything was created on top of that two core elements.
Not the best use of player's abilities... But what a problem if you survived...
I started with basics: moving, firing and throw grenades ability.
After that I added med kits system, so player can heal himself during combat. I prefer this variant over regenerate health, because it gives player more choice during gameplay.
He need to think about this HP in long run, but med kits give him ability to make mistake and heal him up for that. But because meds amount is limited and can’t be restored easily he needs to be careful.
Because weapons have limited ammo, I needed something for player to attack if he runs out of ammo, so I added melee knife attack.
No bullets? You knife can do the thing
Also I have buttons to change weapons and activate things.
Most of the controls should already be well known to players. So I have no need in big tutorial to teach player with basics.
Pretty standard set of actions
But after playtesting it was clear that player need some ability to avoid incoming fire if needed like performing a barrel roll. So I added dash mechanic to the game. When player is in dash state he is immune to enemy fire except explosives.
Moving like Neo, killing like John Wick
Dash ability has small cool down and it’s not limited to stamina or other limiters. But this move cancel weapon reloads and also needed to be mastered so it used to player's advantage.
Also player is able to perform some additional moves, like shooting grenades to detonate them early or perform a critical shot when the crosshair is precisely on the enemy to give additional damage.
Detonating grenade by your fire won't give your enemies a chance to run away
Critical shot element is the main reason to abandon gamepad controls, because I wanted to make shooting mechanic with standard FPS feel when player can make headshot. This thing is very important to eliminate enemies fast and efficient.
Critical shot working the same as a headshot in FPS shooter
And finally the main idea of player's abilities is that everything should be available to the player from the beginning. I am not making grind heavy RPG here, so I have no need to hide abilities under level lock or something like that. All core abilities are ready to use by player from the first shootout. You don’t need to level up for ability to dash.
All these things affected a HUD too, overall your character has HUD like this:
In the left bottom corner we see:
Current HP Simple and easy to read. Changes color when player in critical condition.
Amount of med kits Simple too, but do its job. You can only store 3 at a time.
In the right bottom corner we can find:
Current weapon name I wanted to make icon for a weapon, but couldn’t think of nice implementing this without additional screen space usage just for this element. Also player have only 2 weapons at a time, so I decided that he is able to memorize what he has.
Current ammo count Really, there was no real reason to make bullet count with visual counter, but I really wanted this, so it’s here =)
Overall ammo count Just represent ammo that player has in his pocket.
Grenades count Same thing as overall ammo, simple and easy to read.
As you can see all HUD is heavily inspired by old shooters. But I tried to make it practical and simple (can’t tell that it was the best way thou).
All right, that’s all for today, see you in the next Notes!
Also check out my Twitter and Tumblr for latest news:
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Dev Note 1 and 2
Greetings everyone who reads this!
I am writing articles about my game on IndieDB
But why not to share them here too? So everything will be in one place and anyone can read them if interested.
Let's start then!
Who am I?
My name is Roman, I am a solo indie-developer and working on this project something about a year and a half after my main work.
In overall, my goal is to give people awesome top-down shooter with good gunplay, nice graphics and weapon feeling in which you can play half an hour in the evening after a hard day.
Minigun for CQC? I think that's probably fine...
My main sources of inspiration
Film "John Wick" (This is pretty obvious from the description of the game =)
I wanted dynamic CQC experience like you can see in the original film. When you are always on the move and need to think fast about your next steps. But I didn't want to make it another Hotline Miami style of game.
When enemies are all around you, you have to think faster.
Old PS2 game "Black" I wanted to let people have fun of shooting guns in the game. So I designed every weapon in game to be powerful and helpful. So it’s up to you what weapon to use. With large Arsenal you have pretty large choice in this.
Assault shotgun is really good around here...
Call of Duty Spec Ops Survival I really loved this mode =) So at first I started to make all my game around it. So Survival is not just an addition to story. It’s more like a main dish after you complete story mode and have some general skills.
Weapon Printer works like Mystery Box from CoD Zombies mode.
Uncharted 4 Survival Love this one too. I took idea of changing locations after several waves and special waves from this.
One of special waves - Siege, where you need to eliminate enemies from marked location.
Setting and story
When I started this project I thought about military style shooter with a B class story plot. Like in old action movies.
You will blow things up from that thing too
I want to create an action game without overcomplicated story and focusing on gloominess and drama. We have pretty enough of this in our life, so something lite and positive will be good for lifting player spirits.
Although, some characters have some kind of serious themes in their stories, but it's just additional information for player to find out more about each character.
True shooting story can't exist without miniguns.
At first, I started to think in a way of "Battlefield: Bad Company" style of story, but pretty soon I had an idea to make game about airsoft combat.
This setting greatly expands the boundaries of what is allowed for me to use in game. Pink LAVs, extravagant characters, comedy situations without any drop of blood...
Soon after that I thought, what if I will put this all in standard Anime or Manga like place as school? And then I was carried away...
Maybe I was carried away too much...
I like weapons and other military stuff, and also I have anime style academy. So how about to combine these things? Girls in uniform and military equipment with rifles on a training in Academy. Sounds good, am I right?
It was easy to find enough of art and cosplay to have inspiration for everything about the visual part and I start working on this.
Big thanks to creators for pices of art like these
The main problem was that I wanted to make weapons as fun as possible. For this reason, I came with idea of AR glasses and combat training with the use of special weapons. So it allows me to add fire, bullets, shells and other stuff so it wouldn't look out of place.
The whole story was gathered around this setting and these elements. So player end up in a Military Academy on a distant island in his dorm room and preparing for his first study day.
He doesn't know what's coming...
The main plot takes place in just one school week. So I need to connect all the events in a short period of time, and do it so that everything looked logical and without particularly obvious stupidity.
I don't want to make player do routine tasks, while he has a very important and urgent business. We know how important it is to find your son, not collect tons of garbage along the way, right?
Because of this problem, as well as my personal abilities, I had to give up part of the planned levels and the pink LAV. But even without it, you will find a large number of other things. And also you will find something that will replace the LAV...
It doesn't look so dangerous, but it's older brother will do the job...
Thanks for reading, see you in the next Dev Notes!
Oh, and don't forget to check out my Twitter and Tumblr for latest news:
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