Guide / Repeating answers
The suspect keeps repeating itself
You type something new, and the same paragraph comes back. It is the most common way a run stalls, and it is almost always the question rather than the game — but not always, and the difference matters because each attempt costs you one of ten.
First, work out which one you are looking at
A suspect who repeats and a suspect who is standing his ground look similar for about one exchange. They need opposite responses, so it is worth reading the answer properly before spending the next question.
A loop
What it looks like — The answer comes back with the same structure and roughly the same words, even when you change your wording. Nothing new appears in it.
What to do — Your last few questions have not put anything in front of him that he has not already accounted for. Rewording the same question is still the same question.
Holding firm
What it looks like — The answer changes shape — new detail, a new excuse, a fresh person to blame, or irritation that was not there before.
What to do — You are on something. Movement of any kind is progress, and the next question should stay in the same place rather than change subject.
Four questions that get a different answer
All four have the same property: they need him to produce something he has not produced yet. Rewording your last question does not, which is why it returns the same text.
- 1
Ask where a thing is, not why he has it
"Why do you own that" invites an explanation, and explanations are free. "Where is it now" needs a fact — a place, a person, a time — and facts can fail to line up later.
- 2
Quote his own last answer back at him
Not paraphrased. Take the sentence he just gave you and put it next to the one he gave three questions ago. The suspects in this game revise rather than repeat when they are shown their own words.
- 3
Introduce a person, not an argument
A roommate, a witness, a colleague — someone whose account differs. Evidence gets categorised away; a person who contradicts him has to be dealt with, and how he deals with them is usually the tell.
- 4
Bring up something not on your evidence list
Players report that the suspects respond to details you raise yourself, not only to the items you were handed at the start. A specific that has not come up yet is the fastest way out of a loop.
Two things that are not loops
He refuses to continue at all
Case 5 in particular can stop engaging rather than repeat — a different failure with a different cause, covered on what players report.
You are running a copied script
Questions typed out of someone else’s video stop working quickly, because the run they came from is not your run. The suspect improvises against what you actually said.
If the loop is costing you the case rather than a question, the two walls are Case 4 and Case 5, and both have a plan built around the specific suspect.