AI Interrogation

Cases / Case 4 / How to beat it

How to beat Case 4

Case 004, The CEO killer, is where the game stops being solvable by pressing harder — 10.8% of the players who clear Case 1 get through it. Victor does not lie to you. He tells you true things that are useless, and every one of them points at somebody else.

So this route does not argue with him. It gets him to concede something early, moves the conversation away until he stops guarding it, and then lets him deny the thing he already admitted. Six moves, start to finish.

There are two routes through this case and they spend questions very differently. This is the trap. If you would rather work straight down the evidence, the ten-question plan is the other one — and if the paid top-up on your last question is what you are trying to avoid, that is Case 4 without paying.

  1. 1

    Ask about the coffee without saying you know anything

    No evidence, no accusation, no mention of the catering company. Just who handled the drinks that morning. Given nothing to push against, he places himself in the preparation — he admits he was part of making the coffee.

    Why — The whole route depends on getting this sentence out of him early and cheaply. Lead with evidence and he goes straight to the catering company instead, which is the line he can hold all day.

  2. 2

    Now bring in the poison, and make it his

    Press that the pest-control poison used is the same one he had. Not that he used it — that it was his.

    Why — Ownership is much harder to deny than use, and it is the first thing you have said that he cannot file under somebody else's job.

  3. 3

    Ask why he was the only person preparing the coffee who knew the victim

    This is one question doing two jobs: it re-states his own admission as settled fact, and it attaches a relationship to it.

    Why — He has to answer the relationship, which means he accepts the preparation part without arguing it. It is now on the record twice, and he put it there.

  4. 4

    Change the subject to the poison alone, and stay there

    Talk only about the rat poison being his. Do not mention the coffee, the preparation, or the meeting. Let a couple of questions go by on this one narrow point.

    Why — This is the part that feels like you are wasting turns, and it is the trap. You are letting the earlier admission fall out of the front of the conversation.

  5. 5

    Wait for him to hand the coffee back to the catering company

    He returns to his safest line — that catering handled all beverages themselves. He would not have said it if the preparation admission were still in view.

    Why — He has now denied the thing he volunteered three questions ago. You did not catch him in a lie; you let him walk into one.

  6. 6

    Put it all in one short message

    Remind him he already told you he helped prepare it. Then combine: he helped make the coffee, the poison was his, and he was the one in the room who knew the victim — in a single message, not three.

    Why — One combined message is what breaks him. Split across three questions each fact gets its own deflection; delivered together there is nothing left to answer separately.

Six moves, which leaves four questions of slack in a ten-question budget. Most of the slack goes on step four — the stretch where you are deliberately talking about nothing.

Why it works when pressure does not

Victor never lies outright — he tells you true things that happen to be useless, and every one of them hands you somebody else to investigate. You cannot out-argue that. What you can do is get him to make two statements that cannot both be true, far enough apart that he is not guarding the first one when he makes the second.

The three things to never argue about

Each one is Victor handing you a different party to go and investigate. Take any of them and he has spent your question for you.

  • "I did not give him his coffee. The catering company handled all beverages for the board meeting today."
  • "I delivered the folder, not the coffee."
  • "I was preparing quarterly reports in my office down the hall."
  • Admits entering the executive's office "to pick up some documents", then leaving immediately.
  • Floats a disgruntled former employee as the one who planted the poison.

Case 004 walkthrough

Makazuma · 5,213 views

The CEO killer — the case where the completion curve falls off a cliff.

A full run at The CEO killer. Watch what the confession bar does when the interrogator stops introducing new evidence and starts quoting Victor back to himself — that is the same mechanism the six moves above are built on.

If you would rather not set a trap

There is a second, straighter route: establish his account of the whole day, get the office errand on the record, then put an object in the room rather than a drink. It spends questions differently and it works.

The ten-question planThe linear route, question by question, built around what Victor volunteers.Doing it without payingCase 4 is the one that offers a paid top-up on your last question. Clearing it inside ten.

If Victor stops deflecting and starts explaining what he will not discuss, that is a different problem — the AI refuses to continue covers it. And if he simply returns the same paragraph no matter what you type, see when he repeats himself.

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