Case File 094 · Inside Murder Book
Designing Unreliable Stories for Murder Book
How Murder Book turns unreliable suspect accounts into something players can examine, based on its press kit and development screenshots.
Designing unreliable stories for Murder Book means building suspect accounts that players can question, not just solve. Gungrounds' press kit says the game focuses on "real interrogation behaviors: Fabrication, Avoidance, Narrative Gaps, Emotional Leakage, and more." Development screenshots show how those ideas become tools: an in-game casebook that names behaviours, an evidence board for linking statements that clash, a menu of interrogation techniques, and branching cases whose results include "not guilty". Taken together, the materials point to one design principle. An unreliable story is something to examine, and a behaviour is a reason to look closer, not proof that someone is lying. This page looks at that principle using only what Gungrounds has published, plus general narrative design context that is clearly marked as such.
Key takeaways
- The press kit names Fabrication, Avoidance, Narrative Gaps and Emotional Leakage among the behaviours Murder Book focuses on.
- Development screenshots show a casebook of behaviours, an evidence board, a technique menu and branching case maps.
- A "not guilty" result in development materials shows that an unreliable-looking account does not always mean guilt.
- In general, fair unreliable stories give players enough material to notice problems without making any single cue decisive.
- Details of Murder Book's writing process have not yet been published.
What makes a story "unreliable" in an interrogation game?
In most mystery fiction, an unreliable account is one that cannot be taken at face value. The speaker may be lying, leaving something out, misremembering, or simply telling the story badly under pressure. For a game, the design challenge is to make that unreliability playable: the player needs something concrete to notice, test and act on.
Murder Book's official description calls it "a narrative-driven interrogation game inspired by real police footage and psychological breakdowns." The press kit's list of behaviours suggests the kinds of unreliability the game is built around:
- Fabrication: parts of an account that appear invented.
- Avoidance: steering around a question instead of answering it.
- Narrative Gaps: missing stretches in a story.
- Emotional Leakage: feelings showing through that do not match what is being said.
The words "and more" matter. The press kit presents these four as examples, not a complete list.
How do development screenshots show unreliability being tracked?
Development screenshots give the clearest picture of how an unreliable story becomes something a player can work with. These are development materials, so details may change before release.
A casebook of behaviours
One screenshot shows an in-game casebook listing Stonewalling, Stress Response, Avoidance, Acting Emotion, Non-Response, Submissive Gesture, Fabrication and Emotional Fading. The Acting Emotion entry links failing to sustain a performed emotion to cognitive load theory, the idea that keeping up a performance takes mental effort.
From a design point of view, a casebook like this gives players a shared vocabulary. Instead of a vague sense that "something is off", the player has names for patterns worth watching.
An evidence board for statements
Another screenshot shows an evidence board linking statements. In one example, "I NEVER met her!" and "I had no idea" are linked to a fabricated description of a gun. The board turns an unreliable story into separate claims that can be compared with each other.
Techniques for pressing a story
A technique menu lists Build Trust, Futility, Bluffing, Baiting, Demonstration and Confrontation. Only Build Trust has an official description: "fostering an environment where the suspect feels comfortable and secure enough to communicate openly." For a full walkthrough of these screens, see How Murder Book Turns Interrogation Into Gameplay.
Why is "behaviour is not proof" a design principle?
Research on deception is a useful reality check for any game in this space. A large meta-analysis found that people distinguish lies from truths at only about 54% accuracy on average (Bond and DePaulo, 2006). Stress, fear, embarrassment and poor memory can all make a truthful person look evasive.
A story designed around that finding has to avoid a simple rule such as "fidgeting means guilty". Murder Book's development materials point in that direction. The case select screen includes a "not guilty" result, which shows that a case can end without the suspect being the culprit. The casebook frames behaviours as things to recognise and interpret, and the evidence board asks players to connect statements, not just spot a single tell.
For the research background, read Why There Is No Single Reliable Sign of Deception and Why Truthful Accounts Can Still Be Inconsistent.
How do narrative designers keep unreliable stories fair?
The following is general narrative design context, not a description of Murder Book's internal process. Designers of mystery and interrogation games commonly work with a few principles:
- Plant the contradiction where the player can find it. An inconsistency only feels fair if both halves are available to the player.
- Separate suspicion from proof. A behaviour can raise a question, while a contradiction between statements gives the player something firmer to act on.
- Allow more than one reading. When a nervous answer could be guilt or ordinary stress, the player has to weigh it rather than follow a script.
- Let consequences follow the player's approach. Different ways of pressing a suspect can reveal different parts of a story.
Murder Book's development materials show features that fit these principles: the evidence board supports the first two, and the branching case map with achievement endings and a completion percentage supports the last. The broader craft is covered in How Games Use Unreliable Narrators.
How does a short case shape an unreliable story?
Murder Book's cases are designed for focused 5–10-minute sessions. In general terms, a short format means an unreliable story has to be compact: fewer statements, each carrying more weight. A small gap or a single line that does not fit can matter more than it would in a long investigation. The reasoning behind the format is explained in Why Murder Book Cases Are Designed for 5–10-Minute Sessions.
Where can you examine Murder Book's unreliable stories?
Murder Book is built for players who enjoy picking apart fragments and unreliable accounts: comparing what a suspect says, noticing what they avoid, and deciding whether a gap is a lie or just a gap. It is in development for PC (Steam) and mobile, with release currently planned for the end of Q2 2027. For an overview of the game, start with What Is Murder Book?