Murder 4 and Beyond: Game Features (Patreon)

Since making Marble Puzzles, I’ve been working on a long-term project: the Udon systems for Murder 4. This is definitely taking a while longer than other game worlds, but not just because Murder is a vastly more complicated game mode. And that’s not even including the map layout and art assets-- which I’m getting started on now.

Anyway, this post is to give you all a sneak peek regarding the game logic features for Murder going forward. The main idea here is that I’m not just working on “Murder 4” like it’s just another map. Murder 3 was released with a whole new system for hit detection, weapon unlocks, and other stuff. That same week, I also updated the Murder 2 map with the new game systems. This time I plan to do something similar, making the game systems from scratch and then applying it to the previous worlds eventually to bring in all these new features. I’m also taking my time to make sure the new “Murder” system can be easily re-used for future maps, as well as being bug-free and built in a way that can be easily expanded upon.

So without further ado, I’ll touch on each of these points. Here’s the first real sneak peek of Murder’s upcoming features.

Game Modifiers

Probably the biggest new feature is game modifiers. This has been requested ever since Murder 1, when people wanted the game timer to be optional. Since then there hasn’t been a real need for configurable options since the timer was just removed, but now that there are other extra features in the game, and exciting game modes are possible with Udon, I added a panel where the instance master can modify the game settings. Most importantly, this includes Teams mode (see below). This is also where the game modifiers from the old Patreon poll would go, such as “invisible knives” or “scrambled spawns.” Each modifier is a true/false toggle and you can play with any combination of modifiers that you want. I predict that making the modifiers panel master only means that private worlds will be the ones that benefit the most from this, and public worlds might generally stick to the default settings, but there’s no way to know for sure. I’m happy with the current selection of modifiers, since they work great so far. I am also interested in adding more game modifiers after launching the world to keep things fresh.

Teams Mode

The circles on the lobby floor are now gone by default. Using Udon, I can now assign individual roles to anyone standing in a certain area. Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to opt-out of playing a round if you just want to hang out in the lobby. There is still a countdown timer as well, to give you a heads up if you want to change your mind (although I don’t actually NEED a countdown timer anymore… that was in Murder 3 because the role assigning system was actually really slow). But what if you wanted to stand in your friend’s circle, and become a crime-solving duo (or pair of murderers)? You can still do this if the game master turned on the team circles modifier. This brings back the white circles that you stand in, making them light up green if players are inside and giving everyone in the circle the same role.

Multiple Unlocks vs One Unlock Only Mode

By default, after another player collects all the clues and unlocks a weapon, you can still keep collecting clues to unlock your own weapon. Yes, there will be a limit on how many weapons can actually be unlocked. No, after you collect all the clues you can’t earn a second one-- that’s a job for the other players. But if you want to play with the old Murder 2/3 rules where only the FIRST player to collect all the clues earns a gun (making the clues vanish for everyone else), there is a game modifier for that.

Invisible Knives Mode

There were a lot of great, popular ideas in the Patreon poll, but I ended up choosing this one because it was actually very simple to implement. With this game modifier enabled, only the murderer can see the knives. That means knives dropped on the ground at a crime scene, missing from their original spawn point, or even thrown through the air are invisible to the bystanders. It’s super dangerous. The only time you will actually see the knives is if the murderer is holding it in their hand.

Blind when Shooting Innocents

As the detective or a bystander, if you shoot someone by mistake, your screen goes black for several seconds in addition to dropping the gun and being forbidden from picking it up again. I’m still tweaking how long this stun effect lasts for, and there are other options available to me for balancing: I can forbid OR allow holding a second gun in your other hand, and I can also slow down the blinded player’s movement speed.

New Spectator System

Spectating via the overhead map is a tradition in my Murder worlds and I’m really proud of this improved system. The overhead map now has labels over each player’s name, and the gray circles have been removed. This also means that your in-game photo/stream camera won’t have weird circles or other icons showing up in the picture! Spectators are also presented with a color-coded list of every player in the game. Using the arrow buttons on the spectator screen, or by clicking on their name in the list, you can spectate a specific player, zooming in on their perspective instead of watching from above. This is pretty nice since you can see where they are vertically aiming their weapon. There are still plenty of plenty of possibilities for upgrading this system in the future. For example, I could have a cinematic camera that follows specific game items, or a third person view of whoever you’re following.

Showdown

Without getting into too much detail, the map for Murder 4 might be considerably larger than previous maps… not strictly in dimensions, but in complexity of hallways and doorways, if that makes sense. When there are only two players left, a murderer and a bystander (who may or may not have a gun), the game can sometimes take a little while. I’m constantly surprised at how patient VRChat players are after they die in Murder (even though we have a great spectator screen and lobby area where you can talk to friends), and I’m a bit impatient. When there is only one bystander left alive, a countdown timer starts and the murderer gets a waypoint on screen pointing to the last survivor (visible through walls) as well as a slight speed boost. This should help counterbalance how easy it is for the last bystander to shoot whoever they see on sight toward the late-game as well as punish players who just hide in a closet the whole time, never to be found. I intend to implement a game modifier that disables this feature, which will be on by default. There’s also tons of ways to balance this feature, including the length of the timer, removing the timer entirely, adjusting the range or precision of the waypoint, removing the waypoint entirely, etc.

Keyboard Controls

Desktop players can now operate doors and collect clues even if they’re holding a weapon by pressing Q and E. They can still only carry one item at a time.

This is pretty much a buff to desktop players, who already had the advantage or more powerful and accurate throwing knives. If you’re worried about that, don’t worry, I also adjusted knife throwing to be less powerful compared to Murder 3 and also gave VR players a slight boost to their throwing speed to help match desktop players. That part is all subject to balance changes, but with Udon it’s now super easy to change those boost values depending on if you’re in VR or not.

Bear Trap

In addition to the silenced pistol, shotgun, and grenade, there’s a new weapon type: a deployable trap. This huge, metal bear trap can be armed by clicking the Fire button while holding it, then dropping it on the ground. It’s perfect for blocking doorways or hallways, and it’s more effective at stopping players than using the locks. It looks like the trap will be a murderer-only weapon which is lethal if you step on it, and only the murderer can disarm an already-deployed trap and set it up elsewhere. You can re-use a trap that’s already snapped shut. It’s also pretty loud, but not as loud as a gun. I can balance this later in many ways, such as: How long it takes to deploy the trap, how far away you can hear the trap being deployed, how many traps there are on the map, whether bystanders can use the trap, whether the trap can be manually disarmed, whether the trap can be shot with the gun, or whether the trap is lethal vs. just freezing you in place for a few seconds.

Blood Splatter

Knife kills are silent, but they now leave a blood splatter on the ground, marking the scene of the crime. I hope this is an interesting mechanic. At the very least this means I will actually have to use the “Blood/Gore” tag when uploading the world. Currently the guns, grenades, and traps do not create a blood puddle, but maybe they will some day.

Clues

When you collect a clue, the game notifies you at the bottom of your screen, even in VR. This lets you know how many clues you already have and how many clues are left to collect. Then it fades away. It also lets you know if someone else collected all the clues (and therefore there are no clues left, if playing with One Unlock Only mode), in case you didn’t hear or understand the piano jingle that plays. Clues also won’t spawn on top of each other anymore, so you won’t find stacks of 3 or 4 clues like you can in Murder 2. They also have pretty new models (yes, a variety of shapes and sizes) and a sparkle effect.

Named Locations

When you enter a room, a subtle text message appears describing the name of the room. The idea is that this little welcome message helps players communicate which room is which and also make the world feel a little bit more like a real place with named locations. There is a option to turn these messages off locally if you don’t like them.

Mute Music or Sound Cues  

You can mute the music that plays when the game round begins. I realize these can get repetitive to listen to, but muting all the world sounds in the VRChat settings isn’t usually a good idea since you typically want to hear stuff like gunshots and doors opening. The jingles that play when you receive your role, when somebody wins the game, or when someone unlocks clues are all in a separate category called “Cues” that can be muted as well.

Laser Pointer

The detective's gun might have a laser pointer on it. It looks kinda of bright and silly but it actually works really well. I might keep it in?

Role Assignment Animation

Way nicer animation when you get assigned a role. The notification doesn't stick to your screen as rigidly as it does in Murder 3. Now it follows your camera smoothly in VR. Also, the popup reminds you of your objective, including how many clues you need to collect.

Game Area Bounds

The old murder systems were really unreliable about preventing weapons from being used in the lobby. With Udon I can make sure that weapons stay in the game area 100% of the time. The same type of system is used to prevent dead players from entering the game area. Client hacks might still be able to do these things, but for normal users these bugs just shouldn’t happen anymore.

Error Handler

I’m trying to keep the game bug-free, but eventually something’s bound to go wrong. A gun might not let you shoot it, or a knife won’t damage players anymore. Sometimes no clues will spawn. Sometimes the game countdown won’t start. Whatever the problems might be, usually they just happen “silently” and I have no real way of knowing what went wrong unless I look at the log files that VRChat makes on your computer, and honestly that rarely helps. I have made a custom error handler that “scans” for broken Udon code in the background while you play Murder. This system is separated from all the other game logic in the world, so it can observe whether the game is running smoothly (and so that it doesn’t break down itself). If it notices a problem, it generates a secret error code that describes what went wrong and provides a link to my #bug-reports discord channel. This way I can look up this error code in my Unity project to figure out what’s broken, and I never have to be in the broken world myself to generate a standard VRChat error log file (or have it sent to me, because that’s a hassle). This error handler isn’t magic-- it only detects problems that I can reasonably “predict,” but the error codes are still really helpful. It should also help the discord moderators and myself organize the server a bit more efficiently.

Way Better Hit Detection

From what I can tell shooting people or throwing knives at them is way more consistent. Player hitboxes scale with their avatar size, and small avatars have a minimum height so it’s actually possible to hit bug-sized people now. Player movement lag is still a thing, though, and since hit detection is still “favor the shooter” client-side hit detection, that will unfortunately be just as bad as Murder 2 (nothing I can do about that. VRChat would have to improve their player motion latency). However, the floor plan for the new map I’m working on might help solve some of the issues with close-quarters fighting.

Anyway, I hope you’re excited to play with these new features. I have to get back to working on all the art assets for a new mansion style map, that’s about half the work and I’m just getting started!