Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Sleuth Talk


0 0
Diary of a First Villain Hunt
  Next>  |  Last Page>>  

Yeti Face
Yeti Face
Pinball Amateur

May-15-2014 14:41

[SPOILER WARNING â€" This thread contains information relating to Arch Villain Hunts, so if you haven't used the content before then this is your opportunity to leave the thread and still maintain your lack of knowledge on the subject.

In a similar vein I want to go spoiler free myself, so if you're an experienced player posting here please keep in mind that as this is my first hunt all I know about them is what I post. If you could also avoid posting any hints unless I ask for them, that would be fantastic. Thank you.]





Today I unlocked Arch Villain Hunts. Which is timely, as yesterday I submitted an entry to compete in the annual AVH competition. I didn't mean to deceive anyone with my entry, if anything the Prince's Ambassador deceived me by advertising the hunts when he gave me the invitation, the scoundrel. I travelled to Shangri La today â€" then boom â€" I was landed with the Palace Gate puzzle. Did you know, if you ask the scholars any of the following terms, “Palace”, “Tiger”, “Animals”, “Tov” etc. you'll be informed that those have nothing to do with Shangri La?

However, I'm digressing. I got past the gate puzzle, and I met the Prince with $4500 to my name, three contacts across all cities, and two false accusations. Apparently though he didn't care for any of that, and immediately offered me a villain hunt. I thought it'd be rude to refuse given his esteem for me, so naturally I accepted. My villain is called “The Rat”, which you'll note is not a Shangri La animal mantra.

Since there doesn't appear to be much going on in the forums at the moment I thought it might be nice to make a diary of my attempt to catch The Rat. As I understand it, if I fail the hunt I'll get my third and final false accusation. So either I have to go down, or The Rat does. I can only hope this thread provides some small amusement to the Sleuth community.

Replies

Yeti Face
Yeti Face
Pinball Amateur

May-15-2014 14:43

Day 1

I travelled to Shanghai immediately, where The Rodent is said to be based. At this stage I've got three cases left, and I'm introduced to the VH interface; very sleek. I'm amused by the new case introductions, the new twists, and what the townies have to say when I try to offer them a favour.

None of the three cases go well. None are false accusation bad, but they are all quits. The best I managed was the guilty party being my suspect #2. As I lack the contacts, money, and skill sets I'm relying a lot on luck. I work on finding out alibis until I've discovered four false ones, which I'll then proceed to evaluate. Using this method I'd been hoping to complete around half the cases, but clearly that didn't happen today. With a full set of cases tomorrow it should go better, but I don't know for sure.

I have a real appreciation for the twists that have come up in these cases as a consequence. My detective is so uncertain of himself during them, 'How could I possibly hope to take down “The Rat”? Who am I kidding?' he declares, and I do genuinely feel the pressure he's feeling as the case goes no where, and our sewer loving furry friend continues to evade our grasp. I love being able to have this kind of reaction to a Sleuth case, I haven't properly read the introductions or twists for years and certainly haven't felt immersed like this.

On the more successful side, it would appear that whilst a twist may seem to display my Detective's musings, the server thinks it's displayed a regular case twist, as when I quit my first case a Lady handed me an envelope with $1500 in it for 'agreeing to drop the case', despite my never having been offered that money during the case itself. A pleasant surprise.

Hints Received Today: 0
Total Hints: 0
Money: $2557

Yeti Face
Yeti Face
Pinball Amateur

May-16-2014 13:10

Day 2:

I started the day with information in my inbox that if I fail this Villain Hunt, I will not gain a false accusation. This is a little sad, but I was comforted with the knowledge that my profile would be forever branded with my failure.

The introductions and the twists are starting to get rather repetitive â€" I've had the introduction detailing a trip to the fortune teller come up five times so far. I've also had quite a few cases totally flop out on me. Never the less, this hasn't been an entirely unproductive day!

The signs of success started off with a tease; I'd proved my client was the murderer through evidence and alibi, but no other suspect wanted to help me establish their motive. I growled as I let that case go. Then came case number four. Case number four contained only three pieces of evidence, a right-handed note, a female thread, and a slim footprint. I knew I had found the case to start me off.

I located all the suspects quite quickly, ten suspects as it turns out who were very evenly split between five innocents (two real, one research, two do not match any evidence), and five with an unknown location. Of these unknown, I eliminated two promptly with physical evidence checks, and then, like magic, the third unknown alibi matches a piece of physical evidence. At this time I had exactly $477 dollars, and as I'm sure you know dear reader, one requires $500 in an almost impossible case to bribe a townie. I was very certain about what to do, but in the end, with extreme hesitation, I accepted $23 from a friend. And that's how I completed my first case in this hunt.

My client gave me a pocket watch for completing the case, so I sold my beloved forensic camera for $4800 to both make room for it and obtain some funds. The murderer babbled that the co-conspirator was a woman, and so finally they can be narrowed down. I paid back the money I'd been loaned earlier, and got on with things.

Yeti Face
Yeti Face
Pinball Amateur

May-16-2014 13:10

The next case was another pass, though a significantly luckier one. I had only one false alibi confirmed, with many unknown alibis. This false alibi happened to be my murderer, and they told me that the co-conspirator was north of the racetrack. I managed to complete another three cases after this point, and you know what? They all told me that the co-conspirator is located north of the racetrack. But of course you know that, you've played an AVH before.

Those two clues alone however narrow it down quite well; it has to be either the silk merchant or the fortune teller. The fortune teller is a contact of mine, so I'm not quite sure what'll happen if it turns out to be her. Hopefully tomorrow will tell.

Hints Received Today: 2
Total Hints: 2
Money: $3841

Yeti Face
Yeti Face
Pinball Amateur

May-17-2014 15:59

Day 3:

Of my thirteen daily cases today I managed to successfully complete six. I've also never been more tempted to murder my murderers; three of them told me the co-conspirator was a woman, and the other three told me that the co-conspirator was located north of the race track. The Rat seems awfully good at only letting her murderers in on one or the other of those two facts, she is truly vile. She's also been knocking my detective out and dragging him to his bed to wake up multiple times in a day. I do hope he avoids any permanent mental damage from it.

Case highlights today include starting a case off with three threads (female, female, male) and one note (unspecified), which I thought was a recipe for an unsolved case. I checked in first with my male client who had no alibi, then I checked the thread against him and immediately I had my man. A case that had a much better start gave me two hairs (straight, straight) and one footprint (heavy). I actually managed to split my whole suspect list with four confirmed false alibis and six cleared suspects, which is very rare thing at the moment. The barber agreed to check over four hairs, and the very last one caught the murderer. A later case had every physical evidence townie clam up except the shoe maker who checked over the one viable suspect for that footprint, and it just so happened to be a match.

I'm very happy with the amount of cases that got completed today, I'm absolutely not happy with the redundant murderers. Hopefully tomorrow allow for some more unique hints.

Hints Received Today: 0
Total Hints: 2
Money: $4161

Yeti Face
Yeti Face
Pinball Amateur

May-18-2014 06:55

Day 4:

Two quite interesting cases happened today. The first had the suspect trail go dry after four suspects, the suspect responsible for this clamming entirely when I first encountered them, and all the townies being either useless or clamming. However, I was able to link a curly hair I found on the crime scene to this suspect, and then my client gave me a piece of witness evidence against them. I decided I had to follow this lead up, so I paid out $1000 to the townies to ask them if they'd heard anything about the case and resumed gathering up the suspects, asking them as I went about my suspect number one. One of the very last suspects gave me the second piece of witness evidence I needed and I was able to move in and nab my criminal.

The second followed a similar vein in that the suspect list was cut short by the suspects themselves, and then literally all my physical evidence townies clammed up without answering a single question. I decided to focus on the two confirmed false alibis I had, and started asking my suspects for witness evidence and also managed to continue the suspect trail through a townie. Eventually I found my final suspect, with every other suspect clammed, who graced me with two questions. The very last question resulted in my catching the murderer, which was quite spectacular. Of course both these marvellous cases gave me hints I'd already received.

At this point I became really quite concerned that there were only two hints in this entire case, and since the co-conspirator was either my Shanghai contact or the Silk Merchant I started to wonder if the co-conspirator couldn't be my contact. I sent a message to Bela Talbot III when I saw she was online, who very kindly told me my contacts could indeed be the co-conspirator, and with renewed confidence I cracked on with my cases.

Yeti Face
Yeti Face
Pinball Amateur

May-18-2014 06:56

The case that changed everything was unremarkable enough, I linked a piece of physical evidence to an unknown alibi, and then paid a bribe to check their alibi out with the relevant townie. The murderer's hint though was glorious â€" the co-conspirator is located west of the racetrack. The silk merchant must be hoarding away my villain, and indeed she was. My detective broke into her shop but alas The Rat had fled to London.

I have exactly $4001, and it takes $4000 to get to London from Shanghai, and four cases. With only one case left for the day (which is now redundant) I'll have to start my chase again tomorrow. I'm quite curious as to what would have happened if I didn't have the money to get to London. I suppose either the game would give me travel money from the Prince, or it just wouldn't have sent her to London. If the latter is so then perhaps it'd be a good strategy in the AVH Competition to wire all one's money away before catching the villain in a city to ensure they're captured there and then.

Anyway, until tomorrow, where I'll start the day with nine cases, and literally $1 to my name. How poetic.

Hints Received Today: 1
Total Hints: 3
Money: $4001

Yeti Face
Yeti Face
Pinball Amateur

May-19-2014 09:25

Day 5:

Just before I get properly into the diary for today I want to make a quick note here to my readers. Please, please don't send me money unless I specifically ask of it of you. I know it seems like I'm in a dire financial state during this hunt, but I actually rather enjoy that aspect. It forces me to work around it as a constraint and really think about whether a bribe is worth it rather than handing them out as per standard. It adds an experience to this that I just wouldn't have with a large pile of cash, and means the achievement at the end is my own.

So, London. I arrived this morning and started my first case, where everyone seemed to clam on me immediately. Truly this London is a hostile environment in the 1930s. In modern day London they just all look depressed. The first case flopped, but on the second I managed to get both witness and physical evidence against a person. I decided to borrow $500, with the intent of repaying $550 ($605 with the transfer fee) if I completed the case, or on a later case if they turned out to be innocent. I paid the bribe to check the alibi, and to my dismay that it was revealed my two evidence suspect had indeed got a real alibi.

It was at this point that I started my third case with a $605 bill I needed to repay as soon as I could. Thankfully this case went much better, and I successfully caught the murderer. They let me know the co-conspirator is a woman, just as it was in Shanghai. These villain hoarding women. The client gave me a Marwadi Pagdi (smarts +5) as a reward, so I sold my Cowboy Hat (toughness +3) for $1600, giving me enough money to pay back my short term loan, plus enough left over for an emergency bribe with some fortune teller pocket money on top. I very much hoped the +3 toughness wouldn't be missed too much.

Yeti Face
Yeti Face
Pinball Amateur

May-19-2014 09:29

The very next case resulted in yet another murderer being caught, who helpfully informed me that the co-conspirator was located west of the detective shop. Taking the other clue as well this meant that there were three possible suspects: the podiatrist, the librarian, and the fortune teller. Three cases after this one were flops, and whilst one case had the murderer caught they simply repeated a previous clue. Then came my ninth, and final case for the day where I questioned suspects about a false alibi with the potential to match any of the physical evidence, and caught the murderer out. This particular murderer was very agreeable as they informed me the co-conspirator was located near the river.

If you're familiar with the London map you'll know this meant that of my three potential co-conspirators it had to be the fortune teller, a fortune teller by the way who'd been spending an awful lot of my intros in London telling me about how uncertain my future is. My detective burst in, and with that The Rat ran away to Delhi, and so it is that my plans for the next day have been set out for me. It's convenient actually, there's an overdue library book to collect there.

I'll arrive at Delhi with $436, which as Bela Talbot III has pointed out makes me about 436 times richer than when I arrived in London. Not a bad mark up.

Hints Received Today: 3
Total Hints: 3
Money: $3436

Yeti Face
Yeti Face
Pinball Amateur

May-20-2014 03:29

Day 6:

I don't know what it is about arriving in a new city, but everyone seems to start out hating me and refusing to talk. They know just how to make someone feel welcome. I collected the library book I was tasked with finding, and also accepted a package mission from the post office. Then I started the cases. The first four were complete and utter flops. In fact, the fourth case was such a flop I didn't even locate the murderer.

The fifth case went better, and when I confirmed who the murderer was I slapped those cuffs on them like there was no tomorrow. Cuff slapping is an important ritual to observe when one suspects there'll be no tomorrow, you see. The co-conspirator is, surprise surprise, a woman. I should probably just take that hint as said right from the off. I received the same hint for completing the sixth case, but on the seventh I was informed that the co-conspirator was located north of the Bank.

North of the bank there are six potential co-conspirators. However, of those six, five of them are men. Really. I knew therefore that The Rat had to be hiding out with the tailor. I still had three cases left for the day however, and I'd begun to notice a distinct pattern with this villain. I strongly suspected that she'd flee to New York, and with four cases required to get there I'd be stuck with three unused cases if she did which would be absolutely infuriating.

So I played those last three cases, and they all flopped right on their faces. In fact, they flopped so badly I even wasted a bribe in one. I decided that if the villain did indeed jump ship to New York, I'd borrow the $1000 extra I needed to get there. My detective burst into the tailors, and naturally The Rat ran away to New York. I'd have thought my detective would have gotten the hang of placing guards at the train station, but I suppose for all his skills that'd beyond him.

Yeti Face
Yeti Face
Pinball Amateur

May-20-2014 03:30

I got a loan from a friend for exactly the amount needed to travel to New York, so when I get there tomorrow I literally won't have a single dollar. On the other hand, New York is the one place in the Sleuth world where I have a complete set of contacts. It's the place where I've done the vast bulk of my cases. The Rat has fled to the place most familiar to me, and she doesn't stand a chance.

Hints Received Today: 2
Total Hints: 2
Money: $4000

  Next>  |  Last Page>>  

[ You must login to reply ]