Murder Crime Scene Analysis

Unravel the clues. Unmask the killer. Master the mystery.

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Inspiration

Our inspiration for this project mainly came from the theme, which was mystery/detective. We all immediately thought of something to do with a murder mystery, as we thought it would be fun to make. We settled on making a murder mystery game in which the player has to use clues to figure out who the killer is.

What it does

The code uses expo-go, which is a sandbox tool that can be used to create native apps for iOS and Android. It starts you on a main screen in which you can view the characters, the crime scene, and the background/context. The crime scene screen allows you to view details about each artifact that could have been potentially used in the murder. The character screen lets you learn about each character and their alibis. The background screen gives you helpful information regarding what happened the night before and more clues. The crime scene screen has a button to go to the guess screen, where you can guess who committed the murder.

How we built it

We created this using React Native and Javascript in Visual Studio Code, with the Expo-Go mobile app to test the code. We planned out the storyline, characters, scene, and artifacts in a shared google document, and implemented them in VS Code. As a disclaimer, any pixel art used in our project was not created by us, and was taken from the internet.

Challenges we ran into

The largest challenge we ran into was Expo-Go on our phones updating to a version that did not line up with packages in VS Code. Additionally, we tried to use a default project creator with instructions from our computer science class, but it was also outdated. Jay and Somil eventually figured it out on their computers and was able to code, but Michael's computer was not able to correctly align versions and packages. As a result, Jay and Somil began to code first, and Michael started writing the story and figuring out the plot first. Also, Jay and Somil were working on separate computers and coding is not like live editing on a google doc, so they had to merge their code onto one computer after finishing individual parts.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The main achievement that we are proud of was being able to make it so that when you press on each specific piece of evidence in the crime scene, it will bring you to the corresponding page. This was done by placing a touchableopacity over each piece of evidence that itself had zero opacity, meaning it was invisible, that navigated to that evidence's specific page. Another achievement we were proud of was just getting Expo-Go to work. We were relieved that we could actually code our project, as we needed it for everything we did. Finally, we were of course proud of the entire project overall, as we successfully executed the vision we had in mind for the project, as well as doing it in a rather short amount of time.

What we learned

We relearned app development from this project, as it has been a while since we used it in computer science class. We also learned how to create a game using Javascript, as well as smaller things like how to place touchable opacities anywhere on a screen or display different results based on user input from a textbox. In general however, we learned that this event was a lot of fun and we learned a lot of teamwork skills by splitting up work and problem solving skills by being physically capable of coding.

What's next for Murder Crime Scene Analysis

Future implementations could include more scenes and locations, as well as adding more characters per scene. These scenes could be like levels where the difficulty increases with each level. New scenes could include kitchen, bathroom, living room, or outside the house like a pool, library, or park.

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