MyDarkSecret brings the fun of a Murder Mystery Dinner Party to the Internet. When you register, you can join a game based on a hand-crafted murder mystery script. Every script is different. Some scripts require as few as three actors while others may have many more. You are an actor in the drama. You will be given information about your character, some information about their background, motives and, if your character is the murderer, details about how they killed the victim. Your objective is to effectively role-play your character and grill your fellow actors about their characters motives and possible murder method. Everyone has a motive and everyone has a means to commit murder. You have to separate the guilty looking from the cold-hearted killer. Everyone must tell the truth ... except for the murderer who is entitled to tell little white lies to attempt to steer the blame away from themselves.
These instructions will guide you through the registration process as well as how to choose a game to play and how to play it.
MyDarkSecret is not a fast paced game. It requires reading and careful acting by all the participants. It is text-based ... so don't expect any 3D spaceships or explosions.
You are an actor in a play. You have to role-play a character in a murder mystery. Your characters background and motivations will be explained to you. You just have to provide the dialog.
You have conversations with other real actors about their characters and try to learn their motive and method for killing the victim. Everyone has a motive, but only one person is the actual murderer. Perhaps it is you? Everyone else has an alibi for the murder.
The murderer can tell little white lies, but everyone has to tell the truth and stick to the script. The murderer will not know they are the murderer until the last scene.
A game can take a week or longer to play depending on the complexity of the script and the participation levels of the actors.
Spelling and grammar are important to effective role-playing ... no “l33t-sp33k” please (unless your character is a hacker).
New users start at Level 0 and can only play Level 0 scripts. As you complete a script you move up in Level and get access to more complicated scripts.
Once you join a game, you are committed to that character. You will not be able to play another character based on that script.
You must at least log in to the game or issue a message within 72 hours or you will be automatically kicked out of the game.
While you can play multiple games at one time ... it isn't recommended. It can get pretty tricky to keep all the clues straight in your head. Playing more than one script at a time won't help things.
You have to reveal Facts and issue Challenges to move the game ahead. When you play a game, you will be given these Facts and Challenges as part of the script.
A Fact is a piece of private information your character knows. You will need to reveal this fact in conversations with other characters. How you reveal it is up to you ... you may blurt it out all-at-once or require the others to tease it out of you. You cannot initiate a conversation from a Fact. You can only inject your Fact into peoples conversations (don't worry, usually someone will give you a very clear opportunity to reveal your Fact).
A Challenge is a piece of information that you know about someone else. You are responsible for starting a conversation with the other characters about this topic. You may want to be elusive about this piece of information or be blunt ... it all depends on how you want to role-play your character.
When you issue all of your Facts and Challenges you will be required to Vote to move to the next Scene. You should do this as soon as you can to keep the game moving.
When all the Actors have issued their Facts and Challenges and Voted to move to the next scene, you will be notified via e-mail.
A Scene is a collection of Facts and Challenges. Scripts may be broken up into multiple “Scenes” or may just have one Scene. Complex scripts are generally 2-3 scenes.
After the last Scene, you get to place your Accusations. When you accuse someone, you have to specify who you think the murderer is, why they did it and how they did it. Be as detailed and precise as possible.
When all the accusations are placed, you will get to see the other actors accusations and rank them for accuracy.
Other players can rate your role-playing skills. A good or bad rating can affect your ability to join other games.
If you have not already done so you will need to create a MyDarkSecret account. You can do this by clicking the “Play” link from the main screen (or from http://www.mydarksecret.com/mydarksecret/)
At the bottom of this page, you will see the New User Registration section. Pick a Username for yourself, enter your valid email account and choose a password. If the username and email addresses are not used we will e-mail you a confirmation email. When you receive it, click the link to complete your registration. You will automatically be logged into the site.
MyDarkSecret uses Google Groups for its public forums. This site is used for general announcements (such as down-times, game upgrades, general help, etc.) Your registration process will initiate an automatic registration with the MyDarkSecret Google Group. If you do not want to participate in these discussions, simple ignore the registration email from Google when it arrives. We strongly recommend you join this group (or at least monitor it regularly) since important game announcements and policy changes will appear there first.
Once registered you become a Level 0 user and can play Level 0 Scripts. When you complete a script you get promoted to the next level and can access more complicated scripts.
When you first enter the game, you will be placed in the Lobby. The Lobby is a place where you hang out when you are not acting out a script. The Lobby can display the following information:
A list of all of the games you are currently participating in,
A list of games that need players,
A list of games that you have already completed,
Chat groups for characters you have registered to perform,
Collaborative scripts that are looking for writers,
Settings/Preferences for your account.
At the top of the page is some information about you, including your username and current level. In the example below, this person is called “User3” and is currently Level 2. This means that User3 can join games based on Level 0, 1 and 2 Scripts.
As a new user, you will be most interested in finding a game to join. Look for the “Games That Need Players” section.
You will notice that some games may be marked in red. This indicates that the script is too high a level for you currently. The games that are all white are onces you can join (the Characters in the “Available Characters” column will have dark borders around them indicating that you can select them. Be Careful. Once you select a character you are committed to that character forever.
There is some important information in the “Game Summary” column, including:
The unique ID for that Game. This is useful in chat rooms and the discussion forums for referring to your specific game.
The Level of this Game. This is derived from the Level of the Script this game is based on. For example, Level 3 Scripts produce Level 3 Games.
The “Percentage Complete” for the game. This is an indication of how much discussion and acting has already occurred in the game. Games that are very complete may still require new actors when users are dropped from them (due to inactivity or personal choice). As a courtesy to other players, you should attempt to join more advanced games before joining early stage games.
BETA Status. Scripts that are still under development by the author are marked as BETA. While these scripts are complete, they may have some vague or conflicting information for the actor, which can only be determined by play-testing. After the Script has been beta tested a few times and revisions are made they are marked as Production Ready.
New Games are created automatically when existing Games fill up. If you don't see a character that you are interested in playing immediately, check back in a couple of days, new games are always being created.
In the “Title” column is the name of the Script. If you want to learn more about the Script, hover your mouse cursor over the “Script Details” button next to the title. You will learn about the premise of the mystery and about the victim.
To the right of the Title are the “Taken Characters” and “Available Characters” columns. If you hover your mouse cursor over the photos of the characters, you will learn about this characters profile. This is the Character you have an opportunity to act out and role-play.
When you find a character you like, in a game you are eligible to play (same or lower level as you), you can click the characters image to select it. Once you select a character you are committed to that character forever (otherwise you could learn too much about a script by jumping between characters).
When you do select a character, several things happen:
All other games based on that script are removed from the “Available Games” list. You can only join one game at a time based on the same script,
Your game appears in your “Games You Have Joined” list,
Your character appears in your “Birds-of-a-Feather Chat” list.
The “Games You Have Joined” list shows all games that you currently participating in. You can be removed from this list if you get kicked out of the game due to inactivity or by personal preference. To start acting, click the “Play” button, this is explained in the “Participating in a Mystery” section below. There is also an “Out-of-Character Chat” button available to you. All users that have joined this Game get a special chat room where they can talk about the game without having to act as their character. Be careful not to tell any dark secrets in this chat room! Save that for in-game conversations.
In addition to your game, by selecting a character you also get access to a special Birds-of-a-Feather chat room. Only users that are performing the same character as you have access to this room.
A game may be broken up into multiple Scenes. As you progress in your acting through the game, you will be exposed to a new chat room for each scene. You can talk freely about your character with other users to discuss things like:
How to respond to questions from other players,
How to effectively role-play your character,
How to behave if you are the murderer.
Now that you know how to pick a character, let's start playing!
When you are ready to do some acting, click the Play button next to your character in the “Games You Have Joined” section.
The first thing you should notice is a set of buttons along the top of the screen. There is a “Summary” button and then one button for each character in your Game. The character you are performing will be marked “(You)”. The currently selected button will be in bold text.
At the top of the screen are your Menu options.
“Forum” will bring you to the MyDarkSecret Google Group.
“Game Help and Tutorials” will bring you to this screen and other help.
“Return to Lobby” will take you out of the game and return you to the Lobby.
“Logout” will take you back to the login screen. We recommend you always log out of the game when you are finished (especially if you are playing from a public computer).
In order to effectively play your character, you will need to read up about the play. Start with the Summary page. Read the Summary section to learn about the events around the mystery. Who was killed? What brings the characters together? Next, read the character backgrounds (also on the Summary page). Learn about the other characters, their relationship to you, each other and the victim. You may notice some information under the characters name indicating the users that are performing the other characters. If you are the first user to join a particular script there won't be any other users ... don't worry about that. There will be more people along soon enough. This information is useful in the Out-of-Character Chat room when you need to push other players along.
You will notice there are Player Rating options on the summary page, ignore these for now. We will discuss these later in this document.
Get a good understanding about the characters and the plot, then you can move on to your characters page. In this case, let's look at Edna Eulogy's page:
You will see a lot of valuable information about your character on this page. This is private information for you, when the other players view this page, they will not see any of this information (except for the public summary). This page shows all the Facts and Challenges for your character in this Scene. You will notice a Scene button on your page, since you are just starting your game, you will only be able to see Scene 1. As you progress in the game, more Scene buttons will be made accessible.
Facts and Challenges are the key to your character. These are your Dark Secrets. Your job is to reveal them in a fun way. You will learn about your character from the Facts and Challenges. Is your character shy and nervous or bold and outgoing? Does your character like certain other characters or hate them with a passion. This will help you decide how to role-play your character in dialog. Every player has their own private set of Facts and Challenges.
A Fact is a piece of private information your character knows. You will need to reveal this fact in conversations with other characters. How you reveal it is up to you ... you may blurt it out all-at-once or require the others to tease it out of you. You cannot initiate a conversation from a Fact. You can only inject your Fact into peoples conversations (don't worry, usually someone will give you a very clear opportunity to reveal your Fact).
An example of Fact might be:
You never really like backgammon, but you play it with Bob because you know he likes it. In fact, whenever you hear the word backgammon you sigh loudly. It's starting to make you crazy.
You cannot initiate a conversation from a Fact, but instead you have to work this fact into other conversations. The scripts are crafted in such a way that you will usually be given a clear opportunity to offer this information.
A Challenge is a piece of information that you know about someone else. You are responsible for starting a conversation with the other characters about this topic. You may want to be elusive about this piece of information or be blunt ... it all depends on how you want to role-play your character.
An example of a Challenge might be:
Jody acts like she is a saint, but you have seen her taking drugs at parties and heading off to bedroom with near strangers. You should ask her about this charade she puts on.
You can initiate a conversation from a challenge. You should paraphrase the information.
You have to reveal Facts and issue Challenges to move the game ahead. When you play a game, you will be given these Facts and Challenges as part of the script. When you issue all of your Facts and Challenges you will be required to Vote to move to the next Scene. You should do this as soon as you can to keep the game moving.
If you are joining a game that has already started, you should take the time to read all the conversations from all the other players. This will require clicking on each characters button and scrolling down to see the conversations they have started. There is a lot of very important information in these discussions.
Now that you know about the premise of the murder, the characters and maybe even some clues about methods and motives of the characters, you can start talking! There are two ways you can participate:
Reply to an existing conversation, or
Initiate a new conversation.
If you are initiating a new conversation, click on the challenge you want to issue and you will be presented with the message editor:
Also on this screen you will notice the challenge you need to issue and underneath the editor is a copy of the conversation so far.
This message will be emailed to all the other actors and then will appear on your character page:
Note that you can mark messages you have read by clicking the “Mark as Read” button. From then on, when new messages are posted to that thread, they will be tagged with the “New” icon. This is really handy when there are a lot of messages to monitor.
The other way to talk is to reply to an existing message. You can do this by clicking the “Reply” button next to any message (even your own). You can only reply to messages in the current scene. If your game is on Scene 2, you can review messages from Scene 1, but not reply to them. Replies appear under the initial message.
Now that you have started talking, you have to stay involved in the game:
Continue to issue your remaining challenges,
Establish all of your facts,
Monitor all the conversations by the other players,
Reply to other players challenges,
Vote to advance to the next scene.
Establishing a Fact is done by clicking the Established button when you think you have conveyed the fact effectively.
You will be shown the Voting button when you have issued all of your challenges and established all of your facts.
When you click the button you will see:
You can continue to reply to other conversations after you have voted. Only when all the players have voted will you advance to the next scene. You can monitor how the voting is going by looking at your character page or by the emails you get after each player votes.
You have to either log into the MyDarkSecret website or enter a new message within 72 hours or will be kicked out of the game automatically.
Before you make your accusations, you should rank your fellow players role-playing ability.
Go to the Summary page of the game (the screen that lists all the other characters) and you will be given a chance to rank their role playing ability from 1 – 5 (1 being poor and 5 being excellent). If the user acting the character changes, you will need to rank them again.
When everyone has voted to advance the last scene of the script, you get to place an accusation. If you are the murderer you do not need to accuse anyone ... you just have to hope no one accuses you. Now you get to put all of your gained knowledge to work. Review all the conversations and when you are ready, fill out the accusation form. You can fill out the accusation form and click save so that you can move between screens and continue to work on your accusation. It's only when you uncheck the “Commit” button at the bottom of the form and click Save that your accusation will be committed permanently. You should provide as much detail as possible as to the motive and method of the murder. Be sure you have selected the correct murderer before committing your accusation.
When you permanently commit your accusation, you will be sent to the game summary screen (and will not be able to review the conversations any more).
The Game Summary screen will tell you who the real murderer was:
Underneath this you can see all the accusations made by other players (including yours). If another player made a correct accusation, you get an opportunity to rank the proposed motive and method of their accusation as:
Wrong,
Mostly Wrong,
Mostly Correct, or
Correct
After you commit your ranking, you will be able to see how other players ranked that accusation (and how they ranked your accusation, if you got it correct).
When the last accusation is submitted, the game will be moved to the “Old Games” area of the Lobby. You can always go back and review your game or discuss it Out-of-Character with your fellow players.
While this document is fairly complete, there are always new features being added to MyDarkSecret. Sometimes you will need help that this document doesn't cover, like how to properly role-play your character. There are a lot of resources available to you to get help.
After you join a game, you can access a special discussion group only available to the players in your game. From the Lobby, next to the game you belong to, click the “Out-of-Character Chat” button to enter the discussion.
When you enter a new message, it will be emailed to the other players in your game and appear on the page. New messages appear at the top. Be careful not to enter messages that could spoil the game for others on this page (like “Hey, I'm the murderer, what do I do?!” ... that would be really bad).
There are times when you need to have a confidential conversation about your character ... for example, if you are the murderer and don't know what to do or if you are being challenged about something and don't know how to deal with it. This is where the Birds-of-a-Feather chat is handy. From the Lobby, you will see a list of characters you are playing (or attempted to play in the past). Only users that have played that same character can access that chat room (across many different games). There is a separate chat room for each scene in the script. You should make sure you only talk about information relevant to that scene as some players may not make it to the next scene.
The MyDarkSecret Google Group is handy for broad discussions. You have to register with the group in order to post messages.
http://groups.google.com/group/MyDarkSecret
If you are really stuck, send an email to help@mydarksecret.com for special attention.
© 2007 Dark Secret Software Inc. – All Rights Reserved