A command-line murder mystery

by _kcn8 • 13 years ago

146 47 13 years ago

I take it using pagers would be considered cheating, under the categorisation of "text editors"?

zhemao• 13 years ago

It's not cheating, it just doesn't really help you. There's a lot of noise. You have to use grep, sed, etc. to find the text that's actually important.

hobs• 13 years ago

Not just a little, holy crap there is a lot! The crime scene file is ~13500 lines of reports.

isxek2• 13 years ago

Are the executables listed in https://github.com/bmatzelle/gow/wiki/executables_list sufficient for use with this?

liuhenry• 13 years ago

Yep, I was just able to do it only with cat, grep, sed, and head.

isxek2• 13 years ago

Thanks! I'll be checking this out then.

httpteapot• 13 years ago

cd, cat, ls, head, tail, grep

azernik• 13 years ago

I think I would have found it painful without join and sort, though (which, also in that list).

schoen3• 13 years ago

I found it frustrating that gur vagraqrq fbyhgvba cngu qbrfa'g gryy lbh qverpgyl jura lbh'er qbar naq lbh unir gb vasre gung sbe lbhefrys.

It's a really neat idea and a cool way to give people some command-line practice.

NAFV_P3• 13 years ago

Jung vf guvf? Cenpgvpr jvgu ryrzragnel pvcuref? V jnf whfg ybbxvat ng gur wnetba svyr ba RFE'f ubzrcntr, V zvtug nf jryy eha gung guebhtu ebg13 naq cbfg vg ba UA.

schoen3• 13 years ago

I think of it as normal practice for avoiding giving puzzle-related spoilers.

lost-theory2• 13 years ago

Ohg vfa'g vg yvxr gung va erny yvsr? V xvaqn rawblrq vg orvat gung jnl. Vg znqr zr qb n yvggyr rkgen yrtjbex gb znxr fher V qvqa'g neerfg na vaabprag zna.

schoen3• 13 years ago

Gung'f n tbbq cbvag. Guvf jnf n pynffvp ceboyrz jvgu cbyvpr cebprqheny fubjf yvxr Qentarg -- ab zrnavatshy hapregnvagl nobhg jub gur thvygl cnegl jnf, rire. Znlor vg'f sbe gur orfg gung jr npghnyyl unir gb guvax nobhg jung gur rivqrapr ntnvafg gur fhfcrpg vf jvgubhg vafgnagyl orvat gbyq "pbasebagrq jvgu guvf, Ohtf Zrnal pbasrffrq"!

jamesk_au• 13 years ago

Yes, I agree - I think the name of the suspect should form part of the key required to decipher the solution file, so that you cannot see the solution unless your suspect is the perpetrator.

The frustration for me was gur haerfbyirq vapbafvfgrapl orgjrra gur pbssrr pyhr ng gur pevzr fprar naq Naanory'f jvgarff fgngrzrag.

Gur onevfgn ng gur pevzr fprar ercbegrqyl fnvq gung "n jbzna yrsg evtug orsber gurl urneq gur fubgf".

Ohg Naanory Puhepu'f vagreivrj erpbeqf ure fnlvat gung fur "ena njnl nf fbba nf gur fubgf jrer sverq", gung vf, nsgre gur fubgf jrer sverq.

Vg znl or cbffvoyr gb erpbapvyr be rkcynva gubfr fgngrzragf, ohg gurl frrzrq gb zr gb jneenag ng yrnfg fbzr vairfgvtngvba.

darklajid• 13 years ago

Zl haqrefgnaqvat: Pevzr fprar jnf gur fgerrg va sebag bs gur pbssrr cynpr. Gur jvgarff vf gur ynfg crefba gung yrsg orsber gur fubgf (bhgfvqr) jrer sverq.

Gung fur ena nf fbba nf fur urneq gur fubgf svgf dhvgr va?

ozh2• 13 years ago

yby

alttag• 13 years ago

I'm a bit peeved that much of what is ROT13-ed in this thread isn't spoilers. I went through the trouble to decode it, and typically didn't find it worth the effort.

pessimizer• 13 years ago

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leet-key/

Puts ROT13 encoders and decoders in your context menu, along with a lot of other good stuff.

GuiA2• 13 years ago

Hah, I had a similar idea a few months back [0]. Of course, being the lazy person that I am, I tweeted about it, wrote about it in my ideas notebook, and never implemented anything.

Checking this out right now!

[0] https://twitter.com/gardaud/status/402608968029057027

barrkel2• 13 years ago

It's not a new idea.

I recall a database query tutorial on the Apple Mac in the early 90s that took the form of a detective game. With clues, you gradually refined your query. I can't find any references to it now though.

GuiA2• 13 years ago

Hah, that's awesome- if anyone knows of it, would love to know the name!

I'm definitely familiar with tutorials for programming languages/tools/environments using the medium itself, as you just described - but have never seen anything in game form. Further examples appreciated!

ijk• 13 years ago

I believe the same one was available for DOS, though my memories of the details were vague. It was for either Works or Lotus 1-2-3 and was the culmination of a series of spreadsheet training scenarios.

quantumpotato_2• 13 years ago

Alicia Fuentes F 48 Walton Street, line 433

There's no Walton Street under streets. Same for a few others I checked. What gives?

vacri• 13 years ago

Perhaps you need to hire a skip tracer?

cskau• 13 years ago

I noticed the same thing and opened an issue:

https://github.com/veltman/clmystery/issues/1

garethadams• 13 years ago

I guess she's not important. What let you to suspect her?

quantumpotato_2• 13 years ago

First person in the people file. Is there a bunch of gibberish?

jwhitlark2• 13 years ago

I thought the missing streets added something. People give fake addresses sometimes...

jameshsi• 13 years ago

thanks for sharing. this was entertaining and reminded me of http://vim-adventures.com

veltman3• 13 years ago

Glad you enjoyed it!

NAFV_P3• 13 years ago

A lot of the code that I write looks like a crime-scene.

lost-theory2• 13 years ago

Very fun and unique. I enjoyed it a lot! My solution (spoiler alert): https://gist.github.com/lost-theory/8412918

veltman3• 13 years ago

I love this. I've been curious what a one-line solution would look like. :)

exDM69• 13 years ago

Including the .zip in the repository is a bit redundant when GitHub offers you the ability to download a zip file of a repository. Like this:

https://github.com/veltman/clmystery/archive/master.zip

https://github.com/veltman/clmystery/issues/4 - I opened an issue about it, just in case the author did not realize this.

gatesphere• 13 years ago

This was fun!

veltman3• 13 years ago

Hey, I'm the one who made this. Glad you guys liked it! This one was a bit quick and dirty, done for a workshop at the Mozilla Festival last year, I'm going to try to do another installment though!

jwhitlark2• 13 years ago

I had a lot of fun with this. I did it in Clojure, though. Thanks!

A command-line murder mystery

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