Detective game makers tells us how they would murder Humpty Dumpty

You can’t take a step on Steam this week without stumbling over a body. Step forward and you’ll trip over a cold-to-the-touch mobster with a knife in their back. Step to the left and, oh God, it’s a wizened academic clutching a poisoned apple in their rigor mortis grip. But one step to the right and you’ll find the decapitated head of a curmudgeonly mayor who had recently made enemies of everyone in their small town. Yes, it’s Steam Detective Fest and murder is in the air.

Until January 19th, hundreds of developers are offering discounts and demos of their murder mysteries. With so many bodies piling up, it is hard to know where to start your investigations. So, to test the mettle of these murder makers, I set them a challenge.

How would they kill Humpty Dumpty and get away with it?

In an accidental throwback to the time Alec asked the game industry how they poached their eggs, I posed developers this challenge:

You are the bitter rival of Humpty Dumpty, aide and advisor to the king. To get close to the king, you must first remove Dumpty. However, despite his habit for walking the castle parapets when deep in thought, it will not be an easy task to feign an accident. Dumpty is a cautious individual of a fragile nature and he has installed safety nets along the walls. How do you kill Humpty Dumpty without attracting the suspicion of the king?

Here are their dastardly schemes…

The Ratline

The first answer comes from Tim Sheinman, designer of The Ratline.

Set in 1971, in The Ratline you play an investigator hot on the trail of a group of fugitive Nazis. Picking through documents, building a network of contacts, and connecting together the clues, you need to track down each of the fascists, wherever they may be hiding.

As the developer of a game about uncovering a network operating in the shadows, Sheinman’s approach to Humpty killing seems appropriate:

In the year 1231 of the Second Age, in the Kingdom of Breakfast-topia, a new political movement formed. The Vegan Platter Party had strong support in Beansville, Tomato Town, and the greater Mushroom metropolitan area. While they acknowledged that the powerful Bacon and Black Pudding lobbies would not be removed from plates anytime soon, they set their sights squarely on eggs.

Flyers began circulating from underground printing presses, describing the latent effects of selenium and the risks of salmonella. Before long, the movement’s attention turned to the King’s key advisor, Humpty. How, they asked, could an egg occupy such a position of influence and power? Crowds formed in the streets. Protests massed outside the castle. The King felt the pressure of fomenting rebellion. He had to do something. Finally, he announced that Humpty was to be tried on charges of treason. Most people knew it was bogus – just a move to save the King’s skin – but the mobs were satisfied. Dumpty never said anything. On the third Thursday of the month, he was taken to the royal square and ritually shattered.

Of course, there never was a Vegan Platter Party. Not really. It was all my work – plus that of my rich masters. And so that is how I, a humble Sausage, rose to power and, of course… got away with murder.

Obsidian Moon

Yannis Antonakakis, game director on Obsidian Moon, may have picked up a thing or two from Sam Carter, the disgraced 1930s private investigator at the heart of his murder mystery. As Mark found when playing the demo, this is a game where you will have to solve murders using nothing but your guile and era-appropriate forensic technology. Could this be why Antonakakis’s approach leaves no fingerprints?

Ha! Humpty Dumpty is no match for my evil genius! I would play the long game:

1. Surveil him night and day (where he goes, who he talks to) to expose vulnerabilities.
2. Exploit these vulnerabilities (including his ‘fragile nature’) any way possible. For example, subtly spread rumors about his physical and mental ability to fulfil his role.
3. Through court politics, targeted extortion (mental note: need more digging on the courtesans) and selective bribery, drive the court to question Humpty Dumpty’s advice while at the same time positioning myself as his natural successor.
4. Gradually earn the King’s trust (until then, I do not confront HD openly. NEVER. On the contrary, I appear supportive), while HD is discredited and becomes mistrusted.
5. And then the final blow: when conditions are ripe, HD has ‘earned a well deserved retirement’, ideally somewhere far away …
6. … or he is given controlled doses of Hemlock, his health gradually deteriorates until the end comes for the old goat. Muah ha ha!

Dinocop

Not one to be caught confessing to murder, Dinocop developer Pieces Games handed the Humpty Dumpty job over to one of their game’s characters, a revolutionary pterodactyl called Carmen Babar.

A political animal, she knows a trap when she sees one. After all in Dinocop, dinosaurs are living under the thumb of the humans who brought them back from extinction. While the situation hasn’t devolved into a Jurassic Park event, with dinosaurs running about eating scientists, they are miffed at being treated like second-class citizens. With tensions bubbling over, the humans have created you, the world’s first dinocop, as a means to keep your fellow lizards in check. But will you play ball?

Though, Babar is wise to her human creator’s game:

Getting away with murder has less to do with logistics and planning than with power, especially when it comes to political murders like the one you’re presenting. If the king needs to get rid of Humpty Dumpty, for a reason or another, it would be fairly easy for a henchman to get away with his murder. Any hired gun could murder Humpty Dumpty in plain daylight, and the king could then twist the narrative, and say Humpty Dumpty was killed in self-defense, because he was being dangerous or something.

But you’re implying that the murderer needs to kill Humpty Dumpty without the king knowing. Unless there are other powerful people who have something to gain out of this murder, I don’t think anyone can get away with it. Maybe there are tensions in the king’s inner circle ? Other people close to the king have something to gain by getting rid of Humpty Dumpty, and getting someone else in his place ? Then the killer would become those people’s pawn, or their fall guy.

Else, the murderer would probably get caught and the king would make a martyr out of Humpty Dumpty.

Babar’s time as a revolutionary has clearly turned her into a cynic – though, that doesn’t mean she isn’t right…

Just In Crime

Remaining in the world of animal detectives, in Just In Crime, detective Mr Flurfels McGoodboy has partnered up apprentice sorceress Catarina to solve a case more heinous even than murder: on the sly, a birthday party guest has eaten the entire cake before it could be brought to the table.

Using Flurfel’s detecting skills and Catarina’s handy ability to travel back in time, you must discover who snaffled the cake. You will interrogate suspects in the present and investigate their alibis in the past, leaving no stone unturned.

Perhaps it’s that food centre to Just In Crime that compelled designer Raúl Ramos to craft such a delicious end to Humpty Dumpty:

Murder is a structured art. The first step would be to study every possible idea and scenario. To do that, I would get a journalism degree and then found a video game journalism website. Let’s call it ‘Tic tac toe.’ I’d work for many years until I had built up a solid reputation and contacts, and then, when no one suspects a thing, I’d start asking them really specific hypothetical questions. Like, ‘So, if you had an egg, how would you poach it?’. And if I’m not feeling inspired enough, later that year I’d go straight to: ‘Hey, so…what if you wanted to, say, *murder* that egg?’

That’s when a pretty cool studio full of devs with undisclosed eggslaughter experience would reach out and reveal to me his ultimate vulnerability: personal hygiene.

Every time you cross paths with Humpty Dumpty, make small, subtle gestures. A grimace of disgust. Pinching your nose momentarily. Maintaining a larger interpersonal distance than expected. And if he asks you if he smells bad, DENY EVERYTHING. It must be obvious enough for him to notice, but subtle enough to make it seem like you’re being polite about it.

In the end, he’ll end up bathing, weakening his shell’s natural defenses. And then, all you need to do is sit back and wait for salmonella to do all the work. He might even take a hot bath and hard-boil himself into oblivion!

And as for those devs who realized your true intentions… there’s no need to thank them. It’s always good to meet someone from the guild and exchange notes on our “hobbies”. And you never know when you might need an extra pair of hands to do some digging —wink, wink—.

How about you, reader? How would you smash the egg?