A Victorian Murder Mystery
Discover the secrets of the Leaf Coe mansion!
The LIFCO murder mystery is a browser-based puzzle game/visual novel prepared specially for the event. In the weeks leading up to LIFCO, a section was introduced on the LIFC site marked ‘???’. Visiting it will take the user to a page where they can enter a 6 letter code.
The codes were found in LIFCO’s social media posters, which were posted periodically on LIFCO’s twitter, instagram and telegram channel. Players were challenged to decipher a secret 6-letter code from something in the poster, which may not be immediately obvious. Entering a correct code will reveal a chapter of the murder mystery story, with lore, puzzles, and a heinous crime to solve. On the day itself, codes were hidden in the header banners in channels of the LIFCO server. The final chapter, and the story’s conclusion, was released near the end of the event as an announcement.
For your convenience, all posters and banners containing codes are archived below. Solutions are also available at the bottom of the page.
The following banners were available during the LIFCO event:
The final code, announced during the event is “FINALE”
Author’s Note
Heya! I’m Kerac, I had a hand in most of the writing, story and puzzle design for this project. I don’t write, read, watch or play any murder mystery related media, but I love puzzles! This project was inspired by html browser based puzzle games I played in 2010ish, where the player is presented with a cryptic puzzle on a webpage and has to retrieve a url which was the location of the next puzzle. I liked the idea of hiding puzzles in media where the steps to solve it are not immediately obvious, it allows for a lot of creativity in puzzle design and the flexibility of the solution being a simple code meant the possibilities were endless.
All in all, it was a lot of work but it was a fun experience. I’m glad people managed to figure everything out to the end. I was honestly worried that the mystery would go unsolved! Maybe I’ll write more of these in future, but for now, enjoy the murder mystery!