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passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

I totally understand your point. But as I mentioned, I work alone on the project and that's the only way for now to have playable content. The very next thing, once I can hire someone, would be the artwork and the storytelling.

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Thank you. There's a harness layer that keeps each suspect from deviating from the current storyline. For the moment, I've deployed it to Lambda, where Haiku answers the questions in about 1–2 s.

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

No, it's me replying, for the record. I read and reply to all the comments myself :) Honestly, that's a month of work with intensive use of AI. I always keep in mind that the game is for humans, so every step, every case is validated and played by me.

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Thanks for the feedback. It doesn't collect the hardware ID or the advertising ID. It collects the random player id the app is given on first launch, which lets you keep your progress without an account, and the push token if you allow notifications.

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Hi, fair point. Indeed, the trailer will get a more careful review from now on ;)

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Thank you for playing it through. The Paris case is the first of a five-level training pack, it's meant to guide new players with a tutorial. The free questions really matter in the real cases after that, where the suggestions don't cover what you'll need. And very good point about going back to a location, will definitely fix it in the next version.

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Thank you. Fair enough, I'll add a line saying that the suspects are played by a language model.

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Hi, that's exactly what I'm working on right now. There was a technical barrier to porting the game to the web, and given the slowness of the App Store review process, I'll definitely release a web version very soon. Please stay tuned!

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Thank you very much for taking the time to test the game. Which case did you play, and did the suspects keep a straight face?

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Hi, half of it already works. You can question the suspects by voice and they answer in their own voices. There are still interactions that need the screen though, for now. A voice-only mode is a really fun idea.

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Thank you for your feedback. You're the third person to mention it today. And to be honest, I've never heard of it before. I'm gonna check it tonight ;)

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Good point, I cover the inference cost myself for now, the running cost is a few thousand a year. There'll be premium features in the future, but that depends on reach and retention, and that'd be the second phase of the product.

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Good catch, and that's by design. Someone lying doesn't necessarily mean they're the culprit. Some lies are not related to the case, some are.

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Thank you for your feedback. It's a fair point, LLM stories are often flat, I totally agree. And yes, the cases are written by AI, but through a pipeline rather than from scratch. I pick the idea and the city, then we develop the pitch together via Claude (I'm alone on this for now), then, only after my validation, the engine generates the case from it. After that, it makes sure the case is solvable by having multiple models play it as the detective, simulating different player profiles.

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Ha, interesting, the Clark Kent problem. And your journalist idea sounds fun, I'd try it. For long term vision, I've already prepared an MCP so that people can build their own stories and start a private game, for example.

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Thanks for the feedback. The case is fixed and ensured that it is solvable. I have multiple models to play it before going live. Only the conversation part is free, but it's guarded against the timeline and facts that each suspect knows. In that way, they can lie but can not change the story. By the way, I'm going to take a look at Consulting Detective

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Ha, I'm old enough but grew up in another part of the world (Vietnam) where the game show never made it there. This is the first time I've heard of it and it's interesting that my games share some ideas with it :)

passkey1510on Show HN: Uncracked City, detective game where you question LLM suspects that lie

Thank you so much for your feedback. To be honest, I am a solo founder and dont speak Italian natively. So I have to base on the translation by AI completely. Once I have more players and more financial backup, I'll have those texts verified by native speaker.