Just Your Classic Whodunnit

The premise: A classic locked-room murder mystery. There's a body in the study. The deceased's friends – the suspects – mill about nervously in the foyer. But they have no way to tell the detective what they know: They have not been given dialogue. Yet.

This is an introduction to working within a simple three-beat structure. The task: give the characters (including the body) dialogue, and craft a story. Note that the playable game comprises three rooms (foyer 1, murder scene, and foyer 2) and there are two sprites for each of the (non-murdered) characters, one for each foyer scene (carol 1, carol2, biff1, biff2, butler1, butler2). (butler1 already has some dialogue; feel free to rewrite it.)

Beyond editing the characters' dialogue, you can rearrange and add to the scenes as much as you like. The murder scene especially could benefit for some clues to discover.

Try and hit these three story beats, each tied one of the game's rooms:

• Setup: Introduce the characters and situation.
• Complication or twist: Something that reframes the situation.
• Resolution: Follow up on the complication and provide a logical ending to the situation.

For an added challenge, try completing the task in multiple genres: horror; comedy; science fiction?

ultrabrilliant's Entity is a great example of a Bitsy game with a clear three-act structure.