Project overview
Animal Mystery Crew is a PC title developed by my former indie studio Digital Umami. It is a cozy detective game where you play as an anthropomorphic Capybara. The game focuses on exploring and interacting with the odd characters of this world that takes inspiration from the absurd works of David Lynch and Monty Python.
The studio comprised 6 members and on this project I was chosen for the role of Creative Director. The roles responsibilities were to develop and articulate the vision of the game as well as the oversight of art and systems to make sure they aligned with that vision. My other responsibilities were systems design, narrative design, writing, animation and asserting with character modelling.
Animal Mystery Crew
Investigation and Accusation
Animal Mystery Crew as a game revolved around one thing. Investigation. This was the primary gameplay loop and the method by which the user would be able to discover the world we were crafting for them. With it being such a crucial element of the game, the system to support it needed to complement its purpose as well as being cathartic and within the ‘cozy’ remit we had outlined.
The system that we came up with for this was as follows. Each case was broken down into Victim and Suspects. Each of these would have 3 statements that could be gathered from them. Alongside these statements there would be physical clues dotted around the environment. The aim of the investigation is to find the contradictions in statements and then find the physical proof that backs up one statement over the other. This method forces the player to exhaust dialogue with all characters and search all corners of the map for evidence (although they may be pointed in the right direction should they pay attention)
There are additional layers thrown into some cases to keep the mechanic feeling fresh and also to honour the noir inspirations. Things such as; a character not talking to you until you have done something for them, a character being proven guilty but not of the crime you are investigating, characters updating their statements or giving physical evidence when pressed further, and certain tools needed to gain physical evidence.
With this being a game that leans more into a casual area vs a investigation sim we had to make sure that the player had all the tools needed to cross reference information easily and also form their accusation with a streamlined UX. From this we created our Journal and Accusation systems.
The journal allowed players to quickly switch between the profile pages of characters of interest with each page providing a name, photo, location, synopsis and then the 3 fields where statements can go, regardless of whether they had been filled or not. On top of this all entries are written in the voice of our protagonist. This way the player can see if they are missing something and where they can go to find it, and also we can slightly lead players by paraphrasing suspect quotes in such a way as to weigh them as more important than others.
The Accusation system works as a form that step by step takes the player through the process of building the case before submitting it. It starts with the lie, then the contradiction, then the proof.
This game is a tricky one for me. I truly believe that there is a very good game here with strong market appeal in a proven genre. Unfortunately this was our first major project as a studio formed straight out of university and as a result we spent a lot of time upskilling, we made many mistakes along the way, and many of our situations changed outside of the studio. We worked on this project for roughly two years as a part time venture but lost two members in that time and have since paused development to pursue shorter term projects.
Before the game was paused, Animal Mystery Crew managed to generate around 1000 wishlists. You can find the steam page here:
Conclusions