Danse Macabre

My recent detour into Japanese detective fiction and the captivating mysteries of locked-room whodunits reminded me of popular BBC series Jonathan Creek. The show ran for three seasons between 1997–99. It returned with season 4 and 5 in 2003 and 2014 respectively. A few feature-length specials were scattered between seasons with a final one in 2016.

Fond memories led me to the only reasonable action: binge the entire lot in a fortnight.

The original 90’s episodes remain the best. They’re decidedly camper than I remember. Later seasons took a sombre tone and lost some of the charm. The theme tune is based on the violin riff in Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre (YouTube) — a certified banger from 1874. Hence the title of this post, and as it happens, my favourite Jonathan Creek episode.

Before that, there’s a moment in season one that I think explains everything.

The matchbox

A matchbox magic trick is used to illustrate what makes for a good or bad illusion. I’m sure these were found in children’s magic sets in the ’90s. Kids today aren’t allowed to play with magic. Probably for the best.

Matchbox with a drawer full of matches pushed open on the left (held at a point of view angle).

Matchbox with an empty drawer pushed open on the right.

The trick — if my fancy image comparison web component (original source) doesn’t make it obvious — is that a full drawer of matches is pulled out the left-hand side, and then an empty drawer out the right. Ta-da! Where did the matches go?

Expand for massive spoilers!

The matches are still in the box, obviously. You really needed a spoiler?

But how do we know? If we give this far more thought than it’s worth, deductive reasoning tells us that it’s impossible for the matches to have left the box. Only the youngest of children are baffled by this trick. As Creek says:

It can’t be baffling, there’s not enough scope for the imagination. There’s only one possible explanation: the matches stay in the box and the duplicate drawer comes out.
Jonathan Creek (season 1 episode 3, 1997)

What if we add “scope for the imagination”? Suppose we perform this trick with more razzle-dazzle. Maybe we place the matchbox under a handkerchief and say a few magic words; make a few magic noises. Would the big reveal be more impressive?

No, probably not.

Inductive reasoning now suggests the matches were removed from the box, because that’s the sort of thing magicians do. Audiences expect sleight of hand. This assumption, even if wrong, makes for an arguably less impressive trick.

With a gimmicked matchbox the problem space is too small and the variables are too narrow. Either solution is obvious; no imagination is necessary.

Does that mean complexity is what makes for a good puzzle or illusion?

Actually, no. I’d still argue the opposite. Complexity does expand room for imagination but that alone is not fun. Complexity compounds and quickly overwhelms the imagination.

Suppose you can make the matches vanish without an obvious gimmick? That would not only subvert expectations, it’d also present an impossibly simple problem space. Simplicity forces the imagination. Captures it even! Solving the “impossible” by discovering a hidden variable is far more rewarding than tediously unraveling a complex series of events. If the solution is never revealed then one is left forever baffled.

A matchbox is too small, but a classic locked-room mystery is the quintessential example of my hypothesis that simplicity is everything.

Spooky skeleton

Season 2 episode 1 of Jonathan Creek — aka Danse Macabre — is the most satisfying, in my professional TV watching opinion. It’s a locked-room that defies logic. I’ll outline and discuss the events of the episode but spoilers are hidden. If available to you (hint: it’s probably on YouTube), watch the first half and see if you can solve it before reading on.

Three frames from the Danse Macabre episode decribed below.

The lead up to Danse Macabre’s locked-room mystery is as follows:

Someone in a skeleton costume commits a murder
During the escape the skeleton knocks a women unconscious
A man witnesses this and guns are drawn in a standoff
The skeleton attempts to flee carrying the unconscious body
The skeleton is forced at gunpoint into the open garage
The skeleton places the body on the garage floor
The skeleton closes the garage door remaining inside
The witness stands guard waiting for the police
The police arrive and open the garage
Only the women is found inside

We’ve just witnessed two people enter a “locked-room” and only one person leave. That’s impossible! Where on earth did the murderer go?

The problem space is narrowed by an investigation confirming that the floor is solid concrete, the walls impenetrable brick, and the roof equally impassible. The only entrance was watched the entire time and when opened there was nowhere inside for a person to hide.

The spooky skeleton alone makes this the best episode. It genuinely scared younger me when it first aired. That aside, the simplicity is genius. Reasoning leaves us stumped. The murderer surely could not have escaped? Could they?

Logic hits a dead end based on what we just saw. Our imagination is forced into a higher gear. Eventually, if we are to progress, we must think creatively.

Below are three hints that get progressively more spoilery (be warned!)

Mild spoiler: hint one

It seems impossible for anyone to have escaped the garage. We know that for a fact but accepting the truth doesn’t make sense. We stubbornly look for a solution that cannot exist. That line of thinking leads nowhere.

Spicy spoiler: hint two

If what we witnessed seems impossible, there are hidden variables at play we are missing. What is the one unequivocal fact we’ve identified? Nobody escaped the garage. For that to be true we must question a conflicting assumption.

Massive spoiler: hint three

For the fact to hold true, how many people must have entered the garage?

Did you figure it out? I won’t spoil the entire episode. You’ll have to watch it! That’s far more entertaining than reading my attempt to transcribe.

Jonathan Creek has several locked-room episodes but Danse Macabre is easily the most clever. Simplicity is key to its brilliance. The problem space is narrowed until it breaks our interpretation of events.

This theory of simplicity extends to puzzle games.

Key is push

When a game can hide a solution in a small and seemingly understood problem space, it’s highly satisfying to solve. If a game merely keeps adding new variables and extending the level size to increase complexity it becomes a tedious and less skilful affair.

The puzzle genre is littered with trash but an occasional gem shines through:

These games all explore mechanics that mostly keep individual puzzles small but ramp up the challenge in other ways. The most memorable puzzles are the smallest ones. The purest distillation of the game design that still leaves the player baffled.

Baba is You is especially good at this. Two levels have stuck in my memory. If you manage to solve the level “Floaty Platforms” you’re hit with a bonus: “Floatiest Platforms” (warning: YouTube solutions linked).

Baba is you 'Floatiest Platforms' level.

You must play this game to appreciate how it works but at least you can see the two levels start almost identical. There are two differences:

A single rule has been narrowed; “Key and Door is Push” is now “Key is Push”.
The layout of the level has been boxed-in tighter.

The second difference was optional. It doesn’t affect the solution, rather it’s a sly visual metaphor for the narrowing of the rule. (Baba enjoyers may note the layout change does present a bit of a red herring, but that’s not worth getting into.)

What was already a tricky puzzle just got trickier. As a player our brain is primed with the previous solution. We naturally explore the same avenues only to get stuck. Like the Danse Macabre locked-room, our preconceived notions foil us here. Unlike Danse Macabre, we can’t just question what we know, we have to clear it from our mind entirely. The solution to Floatiest Platforms is entirely different than Floaty Platforms.

Most level-based puzzle games, notably found atop mobile app stores, start small but quickly escalate in size. The core mechanics don’t allow ingenuity, so complexity is the only difficulty adjustment. At some point these games become a chore. Harder levels have too many permutations to track leaving only guesswork and luck as a guide.

Filament is a bit of a hidden gem in this genre. Each area has a set of simple rules you’re shown before being presented with scenarios to test your understanding. The game has a real knack for punishing assumptions. Several times I got stuck because I imposed rules that didn’t exist. For a game to achieve this fairly without cheap tricks is an impressive feat.

Exceptions

There are of course exceptions to the rule of simplicity.

Complexity doesn’t always mean quantity over quality. Two notable puzzle games that come to mind are Return of The Obra Dinn and Blue Prince. Pen and paper and many hours are necessary to reach a conclusion to those mysteries. These games work because progress is clearly defined. Although the player is required to recalled a lot of information, they’re not memorising meaninglessly complex level design that serves no other purpose than being difficult to remember.

Plenty of stories in books and film offer a sprawling, mind-bending mystery. Time travel movies lend themselves to this category. The Prestige, Predestination, and Primer can all be seen as complex who-or-how-dunit mysteries. In these cases we can sit back and enjoy being confused, knowing that we’re not meant to understand until the end (or ever).

For me though, nothing beats the elegance of a simple puzzle or illusion. Make the matches vanish without any hint of misdirection and I’ll be astounded.

This being the spookiest month and all, I have a book recommendation for you: Death Among the Undead (2017) by Masahiro Imamura. It’s of the shin honkaku genre which I am still obsessed with. Think murder/detective mystery, with zombies.

If you’d like to learn about how these ideas apply to B2B marketing, follow me on LinkedIn. If you solved Danse Macabre immediately and think I’m dumb leave a smarmy comment.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Mastodon and Bluesky. Subscribe to my Blog and Notes or Combined feeds.