Sample Galaxy Sleuth Informal Scenarios

Scenario: Player Connects to Galaxy Sleuth

Emma navigates the web to find a Galaxy Sleuth (GS) client which connects to the GS Server. Emma is welcomed to Galaxy Sleuth and informed how many players are currently connected to the game. Emma receives a message informing her that she is the third player to connect, and since the necessary minimum number of players are connected, play may begin at the discretion of the first player (Lee) to connect. She is also shown the characters names which are associated with their token colors. The list reads "Uhura Universalist a.k.a. Lee - color purple; Sam Space-Voyager a.k.a. Sam - color green". Emma is given a choice of the remaining tokens (yellow, white, red, or blue) to represent her character on the game board, Emma chooses the red token which is placed in its fixed beginning position on the game board. Emma is then prompted for the name she wishes to be known by in the game to which she responds, "Emma". Thus, Emma is playing, Tina Time-Traveler a.k.a. Emma. Lee chooses to commence playing. This initiates the start game scenario.

Scenario: Start Game

In order for the game to begin, a randomly selected murder scenario must be selected. The murder scenario consists of a perpetrator, a murder weapon, and a planet where the murder took place. The three playing cards associated with the above elements of the murder are removed from the deck, and the remaining cards are shuffled and dealt to the players. The predetermined playing order starts with Tina Time-traveler, and thus the player selecting the associated token, moves first. The remainder of the order is Sam Space-voyager, Mona Moon-walker, George Galaxy-wanderer, Uhura Universalist, and last, Steve Star-gazer. (The scenario should probably enumerate the cards in each player's hand, but I won't do this here) This initiates the player move scenario.

Scenario: Player move

As the first player, Emma spins the spinner by clicking on the spinner in the center of the game. Because her token does not reside on a planet at this time, but is located at her predetermined starting location, she may not select traversing a worm whole. (See scenario: traverse wormhole) The spinner lands on the randomly selected number, four. The possible legal moves are illuminated for Emma. Emma then clicks on one of the highlighted spaces, and her token then appears on this space. Because Emma's token did not land on a planet this terminates her options for this move. In future moves, if a player's token lands on a planet he or she may either pose a murder hypothesis (see scenario, pose hypothesis) or attempt to solve the murder mystery (see scenario, solve murder).

Scenario: Pose hypothesis

Any player whose token is moved to a planet as a result of the player move scenario may choose to pose a hypothesis for other players to refute. When Emma lands on Earth she may pose a hypothesis that must use Earth as the location of the murder. She poses the following hypothesis by selecting from the pull down menus: Mona Moon-walker committed murder on Earth with a hyper-rope. Because Emma was the last person logged onto the game, Lee has the first opportunity to refute her hypothesis by showing her a single card. Lee has the hyper-rope card, and communicates this by clicking on this card. Emma sees this card, while Sam is informed that the hypothesis has been refuted by Lee.