I'm working on an emulator for the Soviet mainframe BESM-6. Among a few games written for it there was a game called "Inspector" (or "Detective"). Its code didn't survive; the only mention of it I can find on the available disk images is that it was "adapted and reworked" without mentioning the source. The usual source for non-original computer games in the USSR in the early 80s were Western magazines, which means that there should likely be a BASIC language prototype for the game.
The game play was, IIRC, as follows: the player is a detective trying to solve a murder of a party host, that happened between 1am and 9am in one of the ~6 rooms of the house. The player can interrogate each of the ~5-6 guests asking questions like "Which room were you in at N o'clock" and "When were you in such-and-such room?" In their responses guests would mention who else was in the room with them, including the host if he was still alive, and could provide some additional information. The culprit could lie. The guests could move from a room to an adjacent room between the hours, the host stayed in one room. A good result was solving the murder in 4-5 questions. The program allowed up to 9 questions.
Does this ring a bell?
I've reproduced the gameplay from memory as a C++ program. Here is a sample successful session:
There was a murder in a country house between 1am and 9am
during a party. The party host has been murdered. You have to
interrogate five guests: Andrew, Bob, Charles, David and Evan.
The questions you may ask are ``At what time were you in a given room?''
and ``Where were you at a given hour?''.
The plan of the house is:
Bedroom - Study - Living room - Dining room - Kitchen - Greenhouse
The questions are entered as <letter><letter> for the first question
using initial letters of the suspect name and the room, or
<letter><digit> for the second question (the time is given as one digit 1-9).
The host had stayed in the same room both alive and dead;
the guests could move from a room to an adjacent room between the hours.
The innocent will answer truthfully, the culprit could lie.
An accusation can be entered as <letter><digit><letter>, mentioning the time
and the room.
Question 1: a1
Andrew: At 1 o'clock I was in the Study.
The host, still alive, was in one of the adjacent rooms.
David was in the adjacent rooms.
Question 2: d1
David: At 1 o'clock I was in the Bedroom.
The host, still alive, was also there.
Andrew was in the adjacent rooms.
Question 3: db
David: I was in the Bedroom at 1 o'clock
Oops, David never was in the bedroom after 1 o'clock. Let's ask Andrew again.
Question 4: ab
Andrew: I was in the Bedroom at 7, 9 o'clock
Question 5: a7
Andrew: At 7 o'clock I was in the Bedroom.
Bob was in the same room.
There were no guests in the adjacent rooms.
It is known that the guests never mention the dead body. This means that by 7 o'clock the host was already dead. Let's see what Bob says about an earlier hour.
Question 6: b5
Bob: At 5 o'clock I was in the Bedroom.
The host, still alive, was also there.
There were no guests in the adjacent rooms.
This means that the host was murdered at 6 o'clock, and as nobody could enter the bedroom between 5 and 6 o'clock, it was Bob who had murdered the host.
Question 7: b6b
With your help, the murderer was tried and convicted!
It was helpful that as the culprit was not asked about the exact time or the location of the murder, he answered truthfully.
