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Jan-30-2007 12:13

Hello, fellow Sleuths!

Over the last two months, I've been working on a brand new Sleuth helper. You might not think that sounds all that special - after all, great helpers are already available - but what makes this one different is that it's automated!

What it does is monitor your progress in the game, and extract relevant information from the pages. The information is stored and analyzed, in order to help you determine who did it, and who didn't.

It's heavily inspired by Evita's JavaScript-based Sleuth Helper, so a special "thank you" goes out there.

The application is made with Delphi 2005, and should run on any machine with Windows NT/98/ME/2K/XP/Vista and Internet Explorer 4 or later. Additionally, source code is included (ZLib license) in case someone wants to port it to another platform and/or language (such as Java).

The program can be downloaded from http://download.birdiesoft.dk/SleuthHelper.exe (330 KB), and a screenshot of the program can be seen at http://download.birdiesoft.dk/sleuth_helper.png.

Please take a look at the help file before using the program (it's very short), so you are familiar with how the program works.

(Disclaimer: The application depends heavily on the current structure of the game pages, and changes to this may break the program. Although the application is designed in such a way that it should fail entirely if something goes wrong, this cannot be guaranteed. Use of this program is entirely at your own risk, and any cases lost because of errors in the program should not be blamed on the program or the author.)

Aug-31-2007 13:31

Well for some reason, when I downloaded today, it worked. It's absolutely brilliant!

If it only had a step-by-step guide on how to solve each case without everyone clamming on me.... ~ dreams ~

Aug-31-2007 20:22

This program is great! However, there is a problem I have noticed. My character doesn't have the Thread or Hair Anaylysis, and I was doing a Hard, so I found was 1 piece of evidence (a note, but I don't think that really matters). A suspect by the name Barron (just to make things easier) clammed on me, so I didn't know his alibi. He had witness evidence, but the note didn't match him, and the program automatically turned him green. After days of playing with Dr. Watson, I knew that he could still be guilty, so I just quit the case. And there it was, Barron was the murderer! I think you might need to fix that part. Other than that, there it's absolutely wonderful to use.

Aug-31-2007 20:25

I noticed that too, it clears a suspect that doesn't have any PE against them even when you haven't found all of the pieces. That's where you have to remember how to be a sleuth!

Aug-31-2007 20:26

An add on to my previous comment, the software is light years away from what my non technological brain could fathom ,so HUGE props to Pidgeot and thanks soooo much for sharing your little brain child. I don't log onto Sleuth without it!

Sep-1-2007 01:43

Lol. I'm afraid I might have memory loss, in case I forget that the glitch happens. >,< Well, although Dr. Watson doesn't really have a lot of glitches as I know of, it's so extremely painful to type up everything. Andh ere, it takes 1 second to record 3 people. It's extremely useful, especially for lazy people like me. n.n'

Sep-1-2007 02:03

Well, if you know that you don't have all of the PE take manual notes as well as use the helper. Or use Dr. Watson for those cases.

Sep-1-2007 05:27

Besides of which if you have both thread analysis and hair analysis, then you can use it without error.

There are cases with one less PE than the full amount after all. (The nice thing about those is that if there's an evidence missing, you know for certain that a suspect will be missing as well. ie 8 of 8-9 every time! )

The software probably would be improved by including some detective information in the programing. Coupled with a warning in the detective infor window that the sleuth helper will assume that the detective has no skills if the detective page has not been visited after start-up. Warning could be replaced by the normal detective info as soon as it is recieved.

It shouldn't be a big problem since the only parts that are important are the skills of the detective. Those rarely update during a playing session and if they do you have to be on the detective page anyway.

Sep-1-2007 13:20

I really do hope that by the next update, something about clamming would appear. Reminding us who's clammed and can't be bribed would make everything a bit more organized.

Sep-1-2007 14:11

Pidgeot, the helper is great. I happy with it just the way it is. If you chose to add more, then so be it, if not, I will continue to be happy with it. It is a lifesaver, and your doing as all a huge favor by sharing this with us.

Sep-2-2007 06:59

Dave Von Wave, I can't say I've noticed that connection myself, but I'll try to keep an eye out - if such a connection really exists, that might be a valuable hitn to solve the problem of not having those skills.

Steve Long, there are really several problems to be handled when you don't have those two skills:

1) I need to make sure you don't have them - since I can't force you to go to the detective page, and I can't implement persistence of it on a per-detective level without the profile system, I can't reliably check for them, and it doesn't feel right for me to do the check "behind the user's back" as long as I don't have that.
2) Even with that info, I need to determine if you may have missed anything. Obviously, if there can be up to 3 or 4, and you found 2 less, I know you missed something, but I don't if there's just 1 missing (unless Dave's claim holds). I can add code for v1.15 to never mark as innocent if you provably missed at least one piece of evidence, though, which should help in some of those cases.
3) Even with that - I made a change in v1.14 to mark them as guilty once you prove their guilt through WE, regardless of PE. However, as far as the helper is aware, he really couldn't have done it - of course, that's mainly since it hasn't been "taught" the rule of missing PE.

Once I get the profiles up and running, I'll add checks for those two skills, forcing skill gathering for new detectives. If you don't have those two skills, I will assume the case has maximum PE, unless I'm able to prove somehow that it doesn't - that appears to be the best way to solve the problem, since no one will be marked innocent when there's doubt.