External Links


Story File
Post-comp release, Version 2.
Requires a Glulx interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
Source text
Source text for version 2. Available under Creative Commons Attribution Only license.
Story File
Competition version
Requires a Glulx interpreter. Visit IFWiki for download links.
Walkthrough
A walkthrough by the author. Includes several levels of hints.

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Color the Truth

by mathbrush profile

Mystery
2016

About the Story

Rosalita Morales is dead, and you have to figure out who did it. The four people closest to her had the motive and the means: her partner, her secretary, her ex-husband, and her sister. Re-live their memories of Rosalita's last days to discover what really happened. But be careful: Everyone has something to hide, and everyone will Color the Truth.

Color the Truth is conversation-based murder mystery game that takes roughly 2 hours to finish. It is designed to be accessible to players who have never tried parser games, and comes with adaptive hints accessible by typing HINT.


Game Details

Off-Site Reviews

Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Games of Mystery and Discovery from IF Comp 2016
Color the Truth invites the player to investigate a murder by (as typical for IF) examining various environments and also (less typically) by interviewing various characters. When a character gives you a statement, you play through a sequence as that character, getting to see the environment and suspects from their perspective... By the time the game is over, you’ll have played through the events of the murder multiple times from the perspectives of each of the major characters. It’s a pretty effective way of letting the player pull together evidence and conflicting information.
See the full review

Giant Bomb
IFComp 2016: Five Authors and Six Games
While it features puzzles, it relies on a specific puzzle mechanic. Detective stories have been used a lot in adventure gaming and IF, but Color the Truth gets a lot of mileage by keeping the focus tight: It’s a game about interrogation. You take statements from witnesses, ask them questions, and try to catch them in contradictions that gradually unveil what really happened.

The appeal here is definitely in the satisfying conversation mechanics, but it’s elevated by some details in the execution.
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The Stack
Thus, the Topic Inventory and the the Interactive Flashback dovetail, one providing the means of pointing out contradictions, the other providing the results. It’s quite neat.

Maybe a little too neat. The story itself feels a little bloodless to me, with a player character who’s as uninvolved in events as the player, and nothing happening once the investigation starts other than the investigation. But perhaps I’m only saying this because is contrasts with another piece I’ve written up recently.
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Doug's World
Parser Fiction is Not Dead Yet!
A good mystery is one of the most difficult forms of genre fiction to write, because they involve so many plot twists. The author must weave together lies and truth and peel them back in a sequence which allows the reader to solve the mystery at precisely the same moment as the protagonist. "Color the Truth" achieves exactly that. This is as good as any IF mystery I've ever played.
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Breakfast Reviews
On the whole, the game is well-crafted and solidly designed. I like the innovations in the gameplay and, as I've said before, I like that it's a mystery game. It feels compact and self-sufficient, like a sort of breakfast sandwich. Everything in a single, handy package. There's meat and there's egg and there's cheese. Maybe it's lacking a bit of sauce, but it leaves you wanting more even though you're technically full now and shouldn't have another one. And to finish, a small chai latte: just a little special and trendy, but it's tasty and it does the job as well as any workhorse coffee you could name.
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Divagations-Le blog de Monsieur Bouc
Une bonne FI au final, avec une vraie fraîcheur en ce qui concerne le système de dialogues et les puzzles associés. L’idée d’associer des sujets est vraiment sympathique, mobilisant une vraie réflexion depuis l’intérieur du monde. Le reste (scénario, décor, style) est classique, ce qui est loin d’être gênant.
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Page Update History

v.9: 16-Sep-2017 22:28 - Zape (Current Version) - Edit Page - Normal View
Changed download links
  v.8: 16-Sep-2017 22:28 - MathBrush
Changed external review links
v.7: 20-Apr-2017 16:31 - MathBrush
Changed download links
v.6: 13-Feb-2017 02:04 - Wladimir
Changed IFIDs
v.5: 22-Nov-2016 12:33 - verityvirtue
Changed download links
v.4: 18-Nov-2016 19:50 - MathBrush
Changed external review links
v.3: 17-Nov-2016 02:47 - MathBrush
Changed version number, license type, development system, genre, forgiveness, download links
v.2: 02-Oct-2016 23:09 - CMG
Changed cover art
v.1: 01-Oct-2016 17:47 - verityvirtue
Created page