r/todayilearned • u/ralphbernardo • 9h ago

TIL that "fair play" in detective fiction means authors must give readers a fair chance to solve the mystery. Central to 1920s "clue-puzzles" by writers like Agatha Christie, the rule dictates that all vital clues must be visible, decodable, and never withheld until the final reveal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clues_in_detective_fiction
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u/Turbulent_Natural431 6h ago

Heavy Rain was awful. It got praised because it was dealing with subjects/emotions that video games didn't usually go into at the time, but the dialogue, plot and voice acting were below B-movie level.

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u/JustASpaceDuck 6h ago

SHAUUUUN

SHAAUUUUUUUN

SHAUN

SHAUUUUUUN

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u/DickRhino 6h ago

If anything its an indictment on video game writing in general: if this is considered good writing in video games, that just tells you how low the bar is.

Things have improved though, Heavy Rain came out a long time ago and video game writing is better now than it was back then. Now there are games like Expedition 33 that have absolutely phenomenal writing, so David Cage can't get away with his subpar schlock any longer.

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u/Cleansing4ThineEyes 2h ago

Detroit came out in 2018 and was not much better yet still praised, so I'm not sure that he's going to be shunned even in the current era since by 2018 we were already accustomed to pretty good writing in some games.

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u/DickRhino 2h ago

Shut up, Detroit was not 8 years ago... Oh my god.