Last week I bought "ANDANTE murder mystery" and I wonder if it is really new?
(I found it here: http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/7386 )

I really love the effect: You walk up to any unknown group of people and ask them to play a murder mystery game with you, where each of them is either a consistent liar or a consistent truth teller and any one of them is the murderer. They don't tell you their roles. So, at that point you really don't have any information at all and there is nothing else involved (no preshow, no stooges, no cards, etc.). You as the mindreader just ask each of them 1 or 2 closed questions, so they'll answer either yes or no, and you know ("from their mimics etc.") with 100% certainty who is who (murderer & liars) - for all of them!

Initially it reminded me of Marc Paul's "True Lies", but that is not based on logic. Then, of course there is "Imbalanced" by Atlas Brookings, which they cite. That one comes closer but only works for even numbers of players, while ANDANTE's trick works for any number of participants.

Before buying it, I thought this basic principle must have been discovered more than a hundred years ago. But even in Annemann etc. I could not even find anything remotely similar. Does anyone know?

Thanks!
Jason

Hmmm. They "cite" me - Or use my method? Anybody know which?

Also, anybody know who has released this?


And Imbalanced can work with any number of participants - I have just, through experience, found that it is most straightforward and entertainingly performed with four.

Best,

Atlas

@Atlas:
Your method is not disclosed in there. It's just mentioned in the section "Prior Art" as a beautiful method in the context of murder mysteries.

As far as I can judge their method is not at all based on yours - not even for 4 participants.

Great, that "Imbalanced" works also for uneven numbers of participants. I didn't know and I guess other people, like me, might have missed that point in your Penguin lecture. Have you published it elsewhere?

Let me come back to my question above: Do you have any idea if the method above (which does not require any knowledge of the participants, such as left-handed etc.) was published elsewhere before?

Best,
Jason

Hi Jason,

Yes, I have published Imbalanced in the Intrepid Rogue's Manual of Deception. It sounds as though you know both methods? If so, then I'll trust you when you state that they are different.

As far as Andreas Dante's method here, I haven't got the effect and so don't know enough to say whether it has been published before.

Best,

Atlas

Hey Atlas:

Thanks for the info. I saw they sell your book at alakazam.co.uk. Great!

My comparison was based on what I've seen about your menthod in your Penguin lecture. In case there is significantly more in the Intrepid Rogue's Manual of Deception I might miss something.

One thing I forgot to mention: With Andreas' method the number of liars is completely unknown. So, with 9 participants there could be no liars or 9 liars or one third could be liars. And, the participants don't (need to) know who of the other participants are liars. So they are all part of the mystery, which seems to make it quite interesting for them.

Your book looks also very interesting. Will start saving money now...

Best,
Jason

Hey Jason:

I also don't think the method was published anywhere before. Even Banachek's Ring Of Truth that you didn't mention above is entirely different.
Yesterday I bought ANDANTE Murder Mystery from Penguin and it is really simple despite involving many audience members and getting the complete set of hidden information: All liars, all truth tellers and the murderer - from a group that is composed of an unknown number of liars! * Wow, that's ground breaking! *

What I love in particular: The questions to the players are very easy to answer. They don't need to enter any complicated thought process. Still, on top of that they added some kind of a fault detection system. So the odds to succeed are also great in case one of the audience members is a bit sleepy.
Now I'm gonna watch Lie-To-Me to polish my presentation...

Regards
Dan

Can you also reveal who is a liar and who is a truth teller along the way, or are you only able to identify who the murderer is ?

Here is part of one review ..."You line up a bunch of people. Have them select one to be the murderer and have everyone decide to be either a truth-teller or liar. With a few simple questions, you can figure out who is the murderer and who is lying. Of course, this is the old Banachek Ring of Truth premise in different clothing. (Some may even recognize Atlas Brookings's Imbalance, but trust me, this is a lot easier to understand.)"

Personally I found the logic for this way too transparent. Yes it is simple and straight forward but when you ask the questions to a liar it is extremely obvious to everyone that he is lying because both answers he gives cannot possibly be true. To test this I ran through a scenario with my 13 year old son and he spotted the logic instantly and he is not the sharpest tool in the shed. This is not something I would even consider using on real people. Strange Oblique is a similar effect but the logic is far better hidden. Yes this is a lot easier to understand but unfortunately this goes for the spectators too.

Mark

Quite interested in this effect by Mark's review is holding me back. I am just wondering if Atlas version is a better investment.

Atlas version is far superior as is Mark Elsdon's Strange Oblique. I doubt that this version was ever tested in front of an audience because of all the versions of this effect I have ever seen the least effort has been made to hide the logic. The first review sums it up perfectly, this method was discovered a loooong time ago. There is a very good reason why it hasn't been published in this form before.

The basic logic used in this effect has been published before but in such a way that the logic is hidden by more than "Pretend you are the character out of a TV series". In fact a recent release uses exactly the same logic but in an extremely clever way. Your money would be far better spent on either Atlas version or Mark Elsdon's. Mark's can be done completely impromptu with no knowledge of the participants in a far less transparent way.

Mark

As someone has stated above, this really reminds me of Banachek's "Ring of Truth" from his PSI Series, which often works when dressed up really well. Dressing it up as a murder mystery definitely qualifies in that regard, I suppose.

To dress it up even more, maybe some props are in order, much like the Andy Nyman effect called "Dead Zone." Of course, this is me presuming that the props will not get in the way of whatever the method happens to be.

You can dress this up all you want, it's still not fooling