Hanako Games

Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#1 by hanako - Dec 9 2014

Setting aside some space for people to talk about mystery-solving strategy outside of the tech feedback thread where it could get washed away and mixed up in bug reports. Feel free to add your own suggestions for how best to play the game, I'm just going to throw some random bits and pieces together now.


Question - Social + Observation vs Social + Stealth

This is a 'safe' action that doesn't risk losing karma. It's a good way to expose your target's stats so you can figure out what other actions they are weak and strong against. You can get information out of people by questioning them, but since it's just a friendly chat, they might still lie to you, especially if they have something to hide.

Harass - Social + Intimidation vs Social + Intimidation

Putting a little pressure on the target now! You might use this to force someone to tell you things they don't want to tell you, to push someone to do what you tell them to, or just to see if you can make a perp sweat. Harassing innocent people may lose you karma, but people who are guilty will usually give themselves away if you successfully squeeze them.

Stalk - Stealth vs Observation

Following someone around, hopefully without being noticed. People tend to find it a little weird if they notice you doing this, so it might lose karma if it fails. If you succeed, they don't know anything happened, so you can't lose karma for that. This is a good way to find out where people might be sneaking off to, or who they're meeting with.

Inspect - Observation vs Cover

This means looking around in a location where you have a perfectly good reason to be. You cannot lose karma for that, because you're not doing anything wrong.

Search - Stealth vs Visibility, Observation vs Cover

When you're trying to search a location that you have no reason to poke around in, you make a stealth check first. Failing the stealth check will generally lose karma. How much depends on where you were snooping.

Detention - Intimidation vs Intimidation

Now you're really putting the pressure on someone! This is like when the cops lock someone in a small room and try to get a confession out of them. If the subject breaks, you may even gain karma. But if you fail, or the suspect wasn't guilty to begin with, you'll definitely lose karma for being so pushy.

Persuade - Social vs Social

The gentler way of trying to get someone to believe what you want them to believe. It's possible, though unlikely, to lose karma for failing this, if you ended up coming across as creepy. If you succeed, your target will be happy to talk to you, so no problem.

Mislead and Gossip - Social + Stealth vs Social + Observation

These are used when you're trying to get or give information in a roundabout way, without making it obvious what you're doing. (Sometimes Persuasion is too straightforward.) Failing these rolls will usually mean your target is just confused.

Guard - Intimidation + Observation vs Cover + Stealth

This is like blatantly standing in front of a door to scare off anyone from trying to get inside. If you fail to Guard, that means someone might sneak past you and cause trouble.

Stake Out - Stealth + Observation vs Cover + Visibility

You try to hide somewhere so that you can see anyone coming into the area without them seeing you. If you fail, then either you don't see the other people doing whatever, or they saw you and therefore didn't come inside to do whatever you were trying to catch them doing.



(Did I miss any?)

Re: General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#2 by Oki - Dec 9 2014

My tip is:

Theyre all hot go for it

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#3 by Franka - Dec 9 2014

Reaching the End of the Game

Here are my tips for at least reaching the end of the game, without that pesky Game Over screen hitting you. I've tried to avoid heavy spoilers, but feel free to censor me if I failed in that regard.

When trying to just get through the game, you’ll want to identify the traitor very quickly (before the end of the first week, if at all possible), so you can start building loyalty at once. It’s possible to finish the game with just four girls, but until you've really learned how to crack all the cases, it will be hard.

A simple guide to finding the traitor: Set your options to Loaded Dice and Show the Odds. During the first week, do not rush to close your first case. Instead, look to make an action against a girl with stats that are somewhere around 10-15 less than your girls' stats (fx a Stalk action with your 20 Stalk vs a girl's 8 Observation or a Question action with your Charm + Observation 60 vs girl's Charm + Stealth 47). The odds will display 100% (or close to it) due to Loaded Dice, but since this check can actually be failed, or at least give an ambiguous result, the traitor will still fumble it. Question actions are best, since they carry no penalty for failing. Double check if still in doubt.

Once you feel sure you know who the traitor is, max her loyalty so she’ll confess to you. This is the simplest way to finish the game, since you can keep playing with five girls. You’ll know it’s worked if she comes forward with information for a new case after you’ve had the meeting where you could have exposed her, but didn’t.

You may want to spread out some loyalty among at least three different girls, for the purpose of some end game stuff, but it’s doable with just two skilled girls and some items. At least try to put loyalty on girls you intend to train a lot.

Fill up your items from the closet whenever you can. If you end up with bad items, just use them up on a Question action. You can use any and all items regardless of what stat they’re boosting, so make room for some good items. There are certain events in the game that you’ll want to stock up specific items for, but you should probably learn what they are yourself. Allying yourself with the Red Masks, by doing their first case, will help save a lot of time finding the right items.

In order to be successful later, you'll need to complete some cases early on, so you can get skill points. Either you do this the hard way, learning what works and what doesn't, or you cut corners and check out my guide.

First of all, you'll need a minion who can Search rooms and Stalk girls, Rowan is the obvious choice. I dump all my early skill points into Rowan, getting first Observation then Stealth to 50 or so, so I rarely take karma hits for getting caught and will find what I’m looking for (occasionally with the use of a few items of course). Later on, I’ll get those stats to 60 if possible (or 61/61 because reasons), and Observation even higher if I'm rolling in skill points.

Once Rowan is set up, I build a Harass minion who’ll also double for detention, Althea and Thaïs are good for this, but Thaïs will need more points. Althea is perfect if you’re on her route. You’ll need less Social than Intimidation, 50/60 would be my target (or 51/61 due to reasons), but you can actually do with less Social than that in a pinch.

Vonne and Mallory I treat as backup minions, good for Questioning and they can team up for Searching, with some items, if you build up Mallory’s Stealth a little, or if you don't mind taking a karma hit. Mallory can also team up with Thaïs for Harass actions.

Since you can’t add identical stats from multiple girls, you’ll really want a few high stats on specific minions rather than spreading them out. Of course, you don’t want to dump stats on a minion who’ll leave you, so take care if you’re going to kick somebody out of the council due to traitor issues (not necessarily the traitor herself, sometimes you can scapegoat somebody else).

Those are some general tips for finishing the game, they won't apply if you're trying to do something really specific, such as going for achievements. For that, look to my achievement guide (in another topic).

Specific tips for specific girls

When romancing or befriending someone, it’s usually best to have her as the traitor. Maxing out her loyalty will make her confess her traitorous ways to you, and if you then choose her as your Queen, and don’t treat her like filth, she’ll have been dealt with. A new case will then open, where you can follow leads to find out who hired her and why. By doing this, you will keep five minions, for now at least.

If you choose a Queen who is not the traitor, things get a little murky. The easiest thing to do would be to finger the traitor. You’ll continue with four minions. It should also be possible to appease some of the traitors and keep a different Queen, but you’d have to sacrifice somebody else to do so.

In all routes, except her own, Althea may flake out and only stay on half time, meaning she gets a forced rest after each action she takes.

Each girl has an achievement related specifically to them. They're of highly variable difficulty to obtain, spoilers in the achievement guide.

Althea
Romancing Althea is easy and can lead to 2 CGs. She’s your age, and you already have a history together. On this romance path, Thaïs may flake out, and either leave or stay on half time, like Althea does on all other paths. Romancing Althea while kicking out another traitor (Vonne or Mallory preferred) and getting rid of Thaïs is one possible setup for a 3 minion achievement.

Mallory
You can become best buddies with Mallory, but she’s off limits romantically. Besides, she’s a minor. Her 2 CGs are easy enough to find if you keep treating her kindly.

Rowan
With two different paths, Rowan can become either your romance or your devoted minion. Each of these paths has their own CG, and you’ll need two different games to get both. For her romance, you will need Rowan as the traitor, and from there, bring her out of her shell. For her loyalty, you will need to choose Rowan as Queen while you have another minion as traitor – this means playing with only four girls. In order to obtain her minion CG (and achievement), you’ll have to treat her like your personal slave. Don’t worry, she doesn’t actually mind. Minion Rowan has her own unique case on her path.

Thaïs
Befriending a traitor Thaïs can go two ways, but both should allow you to find her 2 CGs. You can either do as she asks and play with four minions, or convince her that wasn’t really what she wanted and keep five. This leads to different scenarios, but has no real bearing on your blooming friendship. You can’t actually romance her, she’s a minor, but a kiss might not be out of the question. One of Thaïs’ CGs is simple to find if you keep showing interest in her. The other one is harder, requiring specific handling of a certain scenario, plus correct dialogue afterwards. Good luck. Thaïs has her own unique case on her path.

Vonne
Since she’s had a crush on you for years, romancing Vonne is as straightforward as it gets. Missing her 2 CGs would only happen if you deliberately sabotaged the relationship. Vonne's path and personal achievement are necessary for the 2 minion achievement.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#4 by Franka - Dec 9 2014

Tips for Cases

Fair warning: If you treat this guide as a bible, you’ll probably ruin your enjoyment of the game. If you just can’t break a case though, I might have found a way.

I do not claim that this is an extensive list of how to solve cases, these are just my experiences. The major plot cases are covered in SPOILERS. Also, everything is subject to evil changes implemented by the devious mastermind behind all this.

Generally speaking, Question and Harass actions will get you answers if you succeed, even if that answer is no answer. Harass costs you karma if you’re leaning on innocents or fail your roll, so using that right away is only good if you’re a lucky guesser. Both actions usually give you tells if you need to put more pressure on a suspect or search their rooms, so learn what the default answer is, because that’s usually not somebody you can do more with (yet) on this case. Sometimes questioning just doesn’t give you anything to go on, and you’ll have to toughen up and risk your karma, or let things run their course and hope the case was just a red herring.

When Question doesn't lead to anything, Stalk is usually the best alternative. Lots of girls go strange places and do strange things they're not supposed to, and they may not exactly be up front about it. When it looks like nobody's doing anything wrong, Stalking them can uncover all manner of filth.

Harass or Detention is usually the way to deal with people who’re doing something they shouldn’t be doing, while Persuade is the way to deal with people who just need a little guidance.

Suspension is something you use against masochistic girls who want to be punished (they’ll tell you so if you Harass them). Or you use it on ring leaders to give yourself more time to clean up a case.

Expelling somebody is something you would usually do to cut your losses. Some cases will cause heavy losses, so taking a -5/-5 karma/reputation loss may be the least damaging option.

A Black Sheep in the Flock
Question one of the gossips to learn what your suspected goth is supposed to be guilty of. Now Search her room and find out if she hates everybody or just one of the girls picking on her. If it’s just one girl, go punish her. If your goth hates everybody, you can attempt to Persuade her or Harass her. It might also be possible to Harass both the gossips into silence. Sometimes Stalking the gossips can lead you to Search one of their rooms, then Persuade the goth? or punish the gossip.

A Delicate Blossom
Treat this urgently, it usually has a harsh time limit. Question her, see if she’s uncertain. Persuade her if she is. If that doesn’t seem to be enough, Stalk her to see who’s bothering her, and Harass her (other) stalker. You will get 5 reputation if all goes well.

A Lost Lamb
Urgent case, it has a harsh time limit. Search her room while you Question her friend. If you find something in her room, send out a strong Observation/Stealth minion to bring her back. If her friend acts suspiciously, Search her room, then treat with punishment. If the missing girl shows up on her own, Harass her and make her stop leaving school.

A Plague on Both Your Houses
Question both girls. If they’re in the same class, Search the classroom for clues, then Harass or Persuade the girls if they’re faking. If they’re in separate classes, Search the cafeteria to find out if there’s a problem with the food. If you Search their rooms and find pills, get to their supplier and punish them. Sometimes it was just a coincidence.

A Special Event
Question the star student to identify the understudy while you Search the location for any problems. Question the understudy. If she talks about sabotage, Stalk her to see if she's actually the one contemplating sabotage, then punish either the star or the understudy depending on the result. You will earn 5 Reputation if all goes well.

A Struggling Student
Search the classroom to find a tutor. While you Persuade the tutor, Search the girl’s room. If you find evidence that she’s a slacker or worse, punish her.

A Vandal on the Loose
Inspect the location. If this leads you to a girl, punish her. Otherwise, Guard the location.

But is it Art?
Search the room to see if the artwork is appropriate. If it isn’t, punish the artist until she changes her ways.

Cell Phone Madness
This case can grow worse over time. Question everybody to learn who’s acting suspiciously. Search their rooms for evidence, and punish them as you go. If you’re lead to the person who started this, you’ll have to Persuade or punish them. Sometimes questioning is too mild, and you'll have to Harass girls to get more leads.

High Rollers
This case can grow worse and worse if left alone. Search the location. If the girls are playing Clue, you should immediately expel Colonel Mustard. If they’re playing strip poker, punish one of the participants. If you get a list of suspects, Search rooms for clues. If somebody owes money to another Search their room for evidence. Punish freely. If you want, you can gain karma for punishing each participant before punishing the ring leader.

Just Say No
A case that grows to horrifying reputation losses if left alone. Stalk a girl. If this leads you to a location, Search it. If it leads you to another girl, Search her room and hand out punishment.

Missing Items
Question both admirers and Search the owner’s room. If an admirer acts suspiciously, Search her room. If you have reason to believe the owner is responsible, punish her, otherwise punish the admirer. If you have no other leads, Search the location where the item was lost.

Missing School Supplies
Search the classroom and Question girls for suspicious answers. If this leads to a new location, Search that. If you find evidence of a girl’s involvement, punish her. If not, sometimes a mistake was simply made.

No Handbills, No Flyers
If there’s a victim, Question and Persuade her, it might solve the case. Otherwise, Inspect the location, and if that doesn’t work, Stake Out the location repeatedly. If you’re lead to somebody, punish them.

Prancing and Pawing
Question both girls. If the roommate is amused, punish her. If not, you’ll have to Inspect either the room or the hallway (pay attention to the clues), then possibly Stake Out that location or Search another girl’s room, and hand out punishment as needed.

The Secret Society
Question one girl and Stalk the other. If neither leads to anything, Harass a girl. If you’re lead to a new person, Harass them, Search their room, whatever it takes. If you find evidence of a slave ring, Stake Out the location on the correct date to identify slaves. You can then Persuade each of them to close the case.

Shock to the System
There’s a strict timeline here, act on it quickly. Stalk one of the potential saboteurs. If this leads to a new girl, Harass girls and Search rooms. If you find a location and a date, you may Stake Out or Guard the location on the proper date to solve the case (depends on the case). If you don’t learn anything, Stalk the gossip and punish her if she's up to no good.

Suspicious Similarity
Search the classroom. If you have a disgruntled teacher, Search the rooms of two different girls. If there’s a cheat sheet, Question and Harass girls with the same test score. Most of the time, this will end in a stalemate when time runs out.

Trouble in Paradise
Question both roommates. If the friends are disagreeing, Question both of them, then Persuade one. If somebody’s jealous, Harass the jealous girl, then Question and Persuade the new friend. If that doesn’t work, Harass the new friend.

Plot Cases
Serious spoiler warning here. I’m not responsible for ruining your game experience if you CHOOSE to unspoil this!

The Traitor
If the traitor supplied you with clues, good enough. If not, Search her room quickly, or you’ll lose your leads.

You’ll need to do a Mislead action quickly, this is Charm and Stealth, so you’ll probably need two girls for this. After this, you have a long time to complete a few Observation tests. They're a little hard, so you may need some items, but there's no penalty for failing them, so you can scout out their difficulties.

The Red Masks
When called, go into the forest. If you now choose to join for the delicious item hunts, there’s three girls to Harass, then one girl to Mislead, and you have a fair amount of time.

Later on, you may Send A Signal to get another task from the Red Masks or Set A Trap to attempt to betray them. Sending a signal will give you a task where you need to first successfully Harass a girl, then put her in Detention. These will be very hard checks, you'll want Inimidation items for them. Setting a trap requires Observation, Stealth and Charm, and you'll only get that one chance. After that, there's a Gossip check and a hard Persuade check, so you'll want some Charm items, but there's less pressure here.

Steam Tunnels
First off, Gossip to find possible entrances, Mallory is perfect for this. Her questions may be foiled by girls you’ve slighted in the past, keep going at it. There are multiple locations, Search each of them, and if it’s locked, move on to another. Once you have the location, it’s time for a hard Stealth check and a very hard Observation check, you should stock up on items for this.

Now it’s time to enter the cave, and you’re going to need either very high Charm OR very high Intimidation, so stock up on items!

Final Boss
Yes, there’s a final boss. You’ll need an Observation check to find the boss. Here’s what you need for the fight: As high a stat for each skill as possible (doesn’t matter if it’s on different girls as long as their loyalty is high), five items that increase stats, girls with loyalty (30+), and preferably have all your stats end in a “1” (train for that). Use your items to increase your highest stats even higher. You’re rolling your stat vs. one of the boss’ stats OR blocking. By blocking, you’ll decrease both your and the boss’ relevant stat, first by 5, later on by 10. If you have girls with low loyalty, block with those first! Also, block with girls who have low stats, and leave your high stats alone. Don’t let a girl get to 0 in a stat unless she's all worn out or you have to in order to maintain your high stats. Once the boss stats get lowered, start rolling, and you’ll eventually decrease a boss stat to 0. Congraturation!! A winner is you!!

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#5 by hanako - Dec 9 2014

Interestingly, I generally find the drugs cases to be easy to wrap up - my most dreaded case is one of the gambling variants. Some of the gambling variants are easy, but some of them involve so many people that finding the right target in time is tricky.

A hint on the drugs case - questioning will never get you information. Every single girl will always deny being into drugs, no matter what. Progress on a Drugs case is best made through Search and Stalk.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#6 by Franka - Dec 9 2014

You're right of course, the questioning was a snafu, let me edit that. While I did rank them, they're both really troublesome and I'll happily save scum to avoid them.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#7 by wendymarlowe - Dec 9 2014

Question: does the traitor manipulate only her own die roll, or the suspect's as well? I'm trying to keep track of successes/fails/ties, but sometimes the traitor is obvious and sometimes I seem to have all my girls doing equally well (i.e. succeeding at most things but not everything).

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#8 by Franka - Dec 9 2014

In my opinion, both. But I'm not an authority. Pay attention to the odds though.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#9 by wendymarlowe - Dec 10 2014

Franka:

In my opinion, both. But I'm not an authority. Pay attention to the odds though.

I'm trying to track "is this a success/fail where a 1 or a 20 would have made a difference in the outcome?" but that depends on whether the opponent's die is a variable too!

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#10 by Franka - Dec 10 2014

If you show the odds, and it's like 90% success, but you get an ambiguous result, there's a good chance you've got your traitor there.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#11 by wendymarlowe - Dec 10 2014

Suspicious Similarity - I found "empty coffee cups and crazy scribbling" in the classroom. It sounds to me like the teacher messed up, but I don't see what I could do about it - the only option for the classroom is still "search." The conclusion was a scandal - overworked teacher gave the students the wrong grades - but I'm not sure how questioning/bothering the girls or searching their rooms would help?

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#12 by hanako - Dec 10 2014

The girls know nothing about what's really going on in that case, but - searching their rooms would let you find the actual test papers. If you find multiple test papers with the same grade and different answers...

Searching the classroom alone is not enough to resolve that. Try actions and see what happens?

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#13 by seangmz - Dec 16 2014

So this thread has been invaluable in getting me at least into the second term, (now I just go crazy every time because I can't get the tunnels under control.)
Is there anyway to increase loyalty other than going out on the weekends?
Also: Does Althea always flake out in the second term, or am I just a terrible president?

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#14 by hanako - Dec 16 2014

Althea always flakes unless you're on her path OR you're already down a minion (having expelled one earlier) and had enough loyalty with her that she decided it would be too cruel to do that to you It is possible to restore some of her loyalty later through events.

edit: this has been altered in the most recent versions, if you have her loyalty high enough before semester 2.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#15 by Franka - Dec 16 2014

I updated the case hints, after more experience with various cases, and solving more drugs, alcohol and gambling. There are still some case variants where I either can't find the effective solution, or expelling people really is the way to go, but I'm doing more of the trial and error thing.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#16 by zeru57 - Jan 14 2015

My least favorite case to deal with is shock to the system. The deadlines can be unexpectedly harsh, and you never know if you're dealing with a poetry club or bombs strapped to the bottom of desks. I've had quite a few -17 karma, -15 reputation on these.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#17 by Franka - Jan 14 2015

I've changed my mind. I hate cell phones. I've even had cell phones where all girls had been neutralized and then it failed.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#18 by hanako - Jan 14 2015

Make sure you actually manage to see what they're forwarding rather than just yelling at them to knock it off, or you may lose the thread of evidence.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#19 by Franka - Jan 18 2015

I wrote a somewhat loose achievement guide, but I'm thinking it's too soon to share it. Besides, there are still a couple of achievements missing from it.

Meanwhile, I've updated the case guide a couple of times.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#20 by skydragonwings - Feb 8 2015

On Missing Items, if you find the item in one of the admirer's rooms, is there a way to tell whether the admirer stole it or the owner planted it there without harassing/detaining one of them and potentially losing karma?

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#21 by hanako - Feb 8 2015

Try stalking the owner of the item.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#22 by skydragonwings - Feb 8 2015

Ah, that's the one I'm always forgetting I can do.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#23 by Franka - Feb 8 2015

Alternately, if you Search the owner's room, you'll know if it was planted.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#24 by skydragonwings - Feb 8 2015

What's the best way to handle a goth who hates everyone? Persuading and harassing don't usually seem to work for me.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#25 by zeru57 - Feb 8 2015

skydragonwings:

What's the best way to handle a goth who hates everyone? Persuading and harassing don't usually seem to work for me.

First talk to one of the accusers so you can search the goth's room. Sometimes you will find a diary with a motive. If it's against one girl, you need to get that girl to stop harassing her. If it's against the whole school, then Franka here has indicated you might need to expel the goth. Sometimes the suspected goth will tell you who's bothering her if you just ask.

Now, if you find something suspicious in her room without an associated motive, you might be able to get away with an easy hand. Sometimes I'll stalk the goth - she'll usually go someplace, and sometimes searching there will turn up something - either someone bothering her, or nothing at all.

As I continue to play, it seems like more and more these get resolved by harassing the girls to keep from bothering the goth, or I get a message that says the goth started rumors herself.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#26 by Franka - Feb 8 2015

I withdraw my Expel order, I've gone beyond that, I think.

Sometimes it's not the Goth you need to deal with, but the Gossips. If you Stalk one of them and find them going to a new location, they're out to drive your Goth insane, and you need to make them back off. For maximum points, there's a lot of Stalking and Searching to do, but you can jump straight to Harassing the Gossips if you like.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#27 by skydragonwings - Feb 8 2015

The specific circumstance I'm wondering about is:

When you search the goth's room and find a diary entry saying she hates everyone and wants them to die. At that point, harassing the gossips usually just leads to them saying "stop bothering me, she's the creepy one," and persuading, harassing, and detaining the goth don't help (I think she usually just says "now you're picking on me too" or something similar). Is expelling her the only solution? Would I find out anything else by stalking someone?

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#28 by hanako - Feb 8 2015

With a genuine bad seed the best thing to do is to get them out before things get worse.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#29 by skydragonwings - Feb 12 2015

Got it! I realized after I posted that it was probably something like that - thanks! I'd be in favor of you posting that achievement guide, by the way.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#30 by Darksilverhawk - Mar 1 2015

So, for the explosion variant of Shock to the System, if you successfully guard the location on the specified date and nothing happens, then what are you supposed to do? Just keep guarding until they give up? No matter what I do I don't seem to get the option to punish the organizer, and if I stop guarding they carry out the plan.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#31 by hanako - Mar 1 2015

To unlock the option to expel the culprit, you need to get hold of some evidence. Guarding the location to keep them away will stop them from doing things, but also stops them from leaving clues. There are actions other than Guard which, taken at the right time, might get you better results.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#32 by Montoya - Mar 29 2015

After playing through a couple of games I've gotten pretty good at handling most cases, but I seriously fear seeing Suspicious Similarity come up- I never seem to be able to close the case, the best I can usually do is hide the evidence of cheating to prevent a scandal... if I have absolutely anything else to do, I'll prioritize it, and rely on the cheating case to eventually time out on its own.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#33 by Darksilverhawk - Mar 29 2015

Ugh, I hate that Suspicious Similarity variant. Here's how I usually handle that case (provided the school isn't currently devolving into a gambling ring or something):

1) Search the classroom above all else when the case first appears; the case will close early with a massive reputation hit if you don't get that cheat sheet out of there. If you find a cheat sheet, groan and cry and scream "whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?" at the heavens. If the teacher shows signs of being overworked, continue down this list as well, but with less screaming and crying.
2) On that same day, question one of the girls to get it out of the way.
3) Question the rest of the girls and grumble because you don't have the resources for this.
3b) If the teacher seems overworked, just search the rooms of two girls who got the same score, and the case should close out with the teacher agreeing to re-grade the tests.
4) Find the ones with the same score, and harass/stalk one of them hoping they'll tell you who the source is. Start searching rooms of the other girls for incriminating evidence and throw them in detention as necessary, but make sure you find out who's making the things before you detain the last one. If you're lucky, it's one of the ones you're harassing/detaining anyway and she'll make herself suspicious.
5) Deal with the source of the cheating as is fit and hope the case actually closes out.

It's a massive undertaking to actually solve a cheating ring, so just hiding the evidence and hoping it doesn't get out usually is the best course of action if you have any other moderate-intensive cases going. Personally, I have similar feelings about the cell-phone madness cases, particularly the nudes variant. I can never seem to close those ones out.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#34 by Darksilverhawk - Mar 29 2015

I usually get the girl to crack and promise to stop just fine, it's stomping out all the extra copies in time afterward that causes problems. I assume I'm screwing up somewhere and severing the only lead on the last copy, I'm just not sure when or where. When the girls panic and wipe their phones when you harass them, does that mean they've just sent it to someone else? Occasionally I'll neutralize the girls until it's down to just one girl who swears she doesn't have a copy anymore until it times out and I fail, so I assume I'm letting a copy leak somewhere.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#35 by Montoya - Mar 30 2015

Actually, speaking of the traitor, what's the general likelihood that she'll flub a roll if capable? I had a heck of a surprise recently when Althea ended up being the traitor- she was my primary questioner/harasser, never worked with other girls, but when she confessed to me she had yet to fail a single action.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#36 by hanako - Mar 30 2015

Should always fail if failure is possible (on rare border cases where it's only JUST BARELY possible to fail, the math might get confused enough to slip, but that's rare), but can easily mask that in an 'ambiguous' result. The traitor knows it's a failure even if Elsa doesn't. So a sneaky traitor might show up with every single outcome being ambiguous and no official failures, even though she actually failed all the time.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#37 by somestrangecircus - Apr 7 2015

A few questions:

1. On the Secret Society cases, when there is a slave ring: If through being unlucky, I find out the location of the hazing too late to stake it out, am I just out of luck?

2. On the Fragile Genius cases, what do I do if the girl seems confident in her skills and Stalking or Questioning don't turn up anything new?

3. Any general tips for school reputation? I have a LOT of trouble keeping it up. I got expelled due to losing it all just now...Had 90 Council Karma, so I guess I'm a dropout but everyone loves me.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#38 by silentheartsong - Apr 8 2015

Reputation does indeed plummet quickly

Also, this is probably just me derping, but where is the jukebox/gallery/achievement list? Things of that nature? I can't find them.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#39 by hanako - Apr 8 2015

The extras only become available after you've gotten through to the ending at least once.

The best tip for reputation is not to fail at the cases! If you have high karma but lose all your reputation, you're probably going too easy on suspects. Harsh actions may lose you karma but they are sometimes the best or only way to get to the bottom of things.

1. On the Secret Society cases, when there is a slave ring: If through being unlucky, I find out the location of the hazing too late to stake it out, am I just out of luck?

2. On the Fragile Genius cases, what do I do if the girl seems confident in her skills and Stalking or Questioning don't turn up anything new?

IIRC if you get to the hazing location too late, there IS still one way to close the case, but it's obviously a last resort. If you can't reach all the freshmen, the only option left is to crack down hard on the people you do have access to - the seniors. Sometimes, Suspend and Expel are necessary evils. Getting there on time is a much better idea.

Fragile Genius - Sometimes, there's nothing wrong and you don't need to do anything. If the girl seems a little too confident, you do have a third action other than Stalk or Question that could be applied.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#40 by somestrangecircus - Apr 8 2015

I'm bad at this game, I think...I have no problem getting high council karma, but I keep running the school reputation very low, mostly because the cases I have trouble with are the ones that have big reputation hits if you fail them.

Also, I tried doing the Red Mask this play through and damn I am wondering why I didn't do that the first time.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#41 by Franka - Apr 8 2015

Right, the cheating genius... I don't think I ever figured out the tell, but sometimes she needs a handy dose of mean. I've been wrong on that one a number of times and gone, ouch karma.

Don't be afraid to Harass people if you really need things to start moving (it's better than losing all your reputation and the game), and if using my guides, don't follow them to the letter. Get out there and mash it up. I haven't covered all eventualities, since most of them are written from memory.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#42 by somestrangecircus - Apr 8 2015

The thing is, if she's confident, it always ends with her being a dirty rotten cheater somehow.

I guess next time I'll try harassing her and see what that does...

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#43 by Darksilverhawk - Apr 8 2015

hanako:

IIRC if you get to the hazing location too late, there IS still one way to close the case, but it's obviously a last resort. If you can't reach all the freshmen, the only option left is to crack down hard on the people you do have access to - the seniors. Sometimes, Suspend and Expel are necessary evils. Getting there on time is a much better idea.

Won't the case time out on it's own before the suspensions are up if you're that late anyway? I pretty much only suspend intentional bad students anymore because the risk is too great- better to take the known hit from expulsion rather than risk the case closing before she gets back to school and can apologize.

Reputation is hard to maintain, particularly if you get a bunch of tough cases. It's not uncommon for me to squeak by on 5 reputation near the end. Stupid drug dealers.

I think the tell on the fragile flower if she plans to cheat is if she says "I am definitely going to win!", then you need to apply pressure to convince her to play fair. If she's just excited, I think you're ok.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#44 by hanako - Apr 8 2015

Suspensions, particularly when you suspend multiple people in a case at once, can have interesting results sometimes. Those results may be good or bad. It's a risky thing. But if you're exploring and trying to find better ways of handling hard case types, you might occasionally want to try it.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#45 by Darksilverhawk - Apr 8 2015

I... never even thought to suspend several people at once. I have no idea why. I suspect a bunch of cases are about to get somewhat easier...

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#46 by Kardori - May 24 2015

So I figured out who the traitor was on the first case, by noticing they got ambiguous results when they really probably shoulda nailed it, given their comparative stats

Thus, I began putting that person on supply closet duty.

I then received about 7 lemons in like 9 results. Was this just bad luck, or does the traitor bring back a lot of lemons? No way of knowing, I'm going to save next week and test this.

HOWEVER the real treat was this: I had 3 lemons in my inventory. A notice showed up saying "with all these lemons, the council should have a lemonade stand" or something. I then used up 3 lemons and assigned a girl to the new "front of school" location which showed up next to the supply room. The result? +3 karma. Am going to test if it is 1 karma per lemon, but if so this is somewhat hilarious because the traitor, and life, gave me lemons - so I made lemonade.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#47 by somestrangecircus - May 24 2015

The traitor is more likely to bring back lemons. Since you can't send another girl to accompany her, you're better off sending a different girl to the closet.

Lemonade only ever takes three lemons and gives three karma, as far as I know.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#48 by Franka - May 24 2015

Kardori:

I then received about 7 lemons in like 9 results. Was this just bad luck, or does the traitor bring back a lot of lemons? No way of knowing, I'm going to save next week and test this.

Supposed to happen.

HOWEVER the real treat was this: I had 3 lemons in my inventory. A notice showed up saying "with all these lemons, the council should have a lemonade stand" or something. I then used up 3 lemons and assigned a girl to the new "front of school" location which showed up next to the supply room. The result? +3 karma. Am going to test if it is 1 karma per lemon, but if so this is somewhat hilarious because the traitor, and life, gave me lemons - so I made lemonade.

Supposed to happen, even has an achievement.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#49 by hanako - May 24 2015

The joy of discovering that while not knowing about it is part of why the achievement list is hidden on your first playthrough.

You should get more karma points the more lemons you use, but it needs at least three and most people won't fill their entire tray with lemons at once, so.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#50 by Gamer - May 25 2015

Can someone tell me how to solve the steam tunnels path? All I can do is search or stake out the tunnels but nothing usually happens unless you can count one of my minions getting a burn from the exposed pipe. And then I would get a game over because I didn't solve it in time.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#51 by Darksilverhawk - May 25 2015

Just keep searching- it'll take a while, but your minions will find something interesting eventually. Make sure whomever you've got out there has high enough stats; you probably won't see a flat out success here, but remember an ambiguous result can still give you what you need. Might be a good time to use some observation items if you've got them to burn.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#52 by hanako - May 25 2015

You should be getting increasing amounts of bonus every time you search the tunnels, iirc? Although at this point in time I can't remember if the search roll has increasing bonuses or only the explore roll does. There are several little cheats built in to try and make this case easier if you're stuck, since it's a game-over if you can't pass it.

Stake Out adds a bonus to the Search roll, but only once.

Since this is an important roll to pass, compiling items is also a good idea.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#53 by LateWhiteRabbit - May 25 2015

hanako:

You should be getting increasing amounts of bonus every time you search the tunnels, iirc? Although at this point in time I can't remember if the search roll has increasing bonuses or only the explore roll does. There are several little cheats built in to try and make this case easier if you're stuck, since it's a game-over if you can't pass it.

Stake Out adds a bonus to the Search roll, but only once.

Since this is an important roll to pass, compiling items is also a good idea.

I don't think the search roll has increasing bonuses. Or at least I didn't notice them increasing.

The only way I've managed to beat this case so far is using Rowan with very buffed Stealth (50+ at least, though higher is preferred, so detention is 100% avoided on the boiler room) and Observation (70+) skills, and Mallory with a high buffed Social (50-60+) skill, and spamming items. I normally have to save up several 15+ Observation and Social items, and throw them into the mix.

I shamefully admit to save-scumming this case, because even with Red Mask favor, I don't usually have time to solve cases and restock the correct kind of 15+ items if my first attempt fails, so I get prepared, save, and restart the week until I am successful.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#54 by Oki - May 27 2015

I just recorded 45 minutes of not being able to solve a drug dealing case. WHAT DO I DO??? SEARCHING HER ROOM NEVER WORKS, I've busted her giving drugs to tons of students and yet somehow that doesn't warrant expulsion? WTF???

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#55 by hanako - May 27 2015

Have you actually seen her giving drugs to students, or have you seen "a package changing hands"?

A package could be anything, and seeing two people talking and passing something back and forth between each other doesn't necessarily mean that you know which of them is buying and which one is selling. That's not enough proof to expel someone.

When you say searching the room doesn't work, do you mean you don't have enough skills, or that you never find anything? You might be looking in the wrong room.

If you specifically saw her selling and your skills just aren't high enough to search the room... this case might be a tiny bit too hard, I'll look at it.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#56 by Oki - May 27 2015

It's just not high enough, this is week like...3....and I can't ever find anything, ever.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#57 by Darksilverhawk - May 28 2015

It's entirely possible to get cases you just don't have the stats to deal with early on. Sometimes you've gotta know when to throw a case.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#58 by hanako - May 28 2015

Yeah, but that case drags on massively and doesn't close if not resolved, which makes it too much of a stumbling block. 1.0.13 bans drugs cases from starting in the first month, and adds another possible way to unlock the expulsion option.

It's still a mean case, but that should shift the meanness into a more doable time period.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#59 by Montoya - May 30 2015

I'm curious, are there any cases besides the variation of the black sheep where the goth hates the worlds where you have to expel someone to solve it? I've always viewed suspensions and expulsions as last-resort eject keys for cases I can't figure out how to solve.

(The only other time I can remember using expel is whenever I get the organized cheating case- if I get the cheating one, hyper-aggressive expulsions are often the only way I can handle it)

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#60 by somestrangecircus - May 30 2015

There's a variant where one of the gossipers is just making up the rumors, I think.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#61 by hanako - May 30 2015

There are a handful of cases where expulsion is the only way out. The usual warning signs for that sort of case are hints that the problem is more serious than a little school dispute, and the culprit not responding to detentions.

The kid setting bombs, for instance.

I don't think you're required to expel anyone just for gossipping.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#62 by Dragondave17 - Jun 22 2015

There's two additional things I was wondering:

Is it possible to get a * grade on most tasks, or are most tasks capped to certain grades?

For the * grades that are possible, can you get them "safely" or do you sometimes have to risk a Karma hit by acting out of turn?

I know that at least 7 tasks can be starred fairly safely, and sometimes when I reach an A-C I wonder if I hit the cap or whether I could've done something different.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#63 by hanako - Jun 22 2015

No, there are lots of cases where a really high grade is completely impossible. Especially on the case variants where there's no real mystery, just a red herring. If there's no way to 'win' it, the best you can do is not lose any points, which should get you a C in the end.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#64 by 4Dam-Ghost-Nappa - Sep 2 2015

I've tend to notice that if you save at the beginning of a week, and reload it after totally bombing a case, you tend to get the same case with maybe just some name changes and portrait changes, but the actual events that occur in the case more often than not seem to be the same.

Does the game generate a random seed at the beginning of the game and use that through the playthrough? Save Scumming seems rather abusable in a game that is supposed to be pseudo-random or random.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#65 by hanako - Sep 2 2015

There's a careful balance of what is and isn't random to allow some wiggle room when absolutely necessary while discouraging people from wasting their time reloading constantly. Early on we had too many people encouraging 'Just keep reloading until you get a better case!' if it generated a case that they didn't like.

Similarly, this is the reason that you can't manually save during the week and keep reloading to get better dice rolls on your actions. Because people will, and then they will complain that they're not having any fun because I 'forced' them to play this way.

On a normal beginning-of-week save, the cases and starting cards are set. If you keep reloading that save, the set of cards that you begin the week's new case with will still have the same names and the same stats.

Cards that are added to the case after the start of the week are often randomly generated at that point in time, so THEY will be different if you start the week over. And, of course, the dice may not go your way on your next attempt, either.

If the whole week was an utter disaster, you can back up and start the week over again and 'cheat' slightly with the knowledge you've obtained. But it's not a guarantee that things will work out exactly like you hope, either, so it's really not worth doing unless something went horribly wrong or you're about to lose the game.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#66 by 4Dam-Ghost-Nappa - Sep 3 2015

Is there a better way to deal with a girl who has a black knife in the "Black Sheep in the Herd" mission than Expulsion?

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#67 by MadeiraD - Sep 22 2015

I keep getting a variant of the prancing and pawing mystery where I can't get any information out of anybody and staking out the hallway doesn't get me anywhere, what gives?

Also the disused classroom thing? I'm not sure whether to give it to the girl who requests guard duty?

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#68 by hanako - Sep 22 2015

MadeiraD:

I keep getting a variant of the prancing and pawing mystery where I can't get any information out of anybody and staking out the hallway doesn't get me anywhere, what gives?

Have you tried stalking?

Also the disused classroom thing? I'm not sure whether to give it to the girl who requests guard duty?

Up to you, it may have plot effects if you do or don't.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#69 by somestrangecircus - Sep 23 2015

hanako:

MadeiraD:

I keep getting a variant of the prancing and pawing mystery where I can't get any information out of anybody and staking out the hallway doesn't get me anywhere, what gives?

Have you tried stalking?

Hanako Games, giving life advice for all ages.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#70 by Shallan - Oct 19 2015

In the "hates everyone" unredeemable goth variant, while it seems that expelling her is the only answer (feel free to correct me!) are you still supposed to take the reputation hit for expelling her? (Let me know if this needs a spoiler at this point, and I'll figure out how to do them)

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#71 by hanako - Oct 19 2015

Yes, expulsion is always a rep hit even if you had no other choice.

Re: Solving Mysteries - General Hints / Tips / Strategy

#72 by Shallan - Oct 19 2015

Thanks! I guess I just think of it as cutting my losses.

And since I've never said it, thanks for ALL your games. I'm pretty sure I'm WAY outside the target demographic, but all of your games feature great writing, and usually a fair bit of thinking, taking it beyond the visual novel genre (which I find a bit too passive). The fact they all have young female protagonists I just call an author's quirk.