Designing Spoiler Controls and Evidence Labels for a Horror Game Wiki
A reader searches for help opening a puzzle box. The result supplies the answer in its preview, includes a later character reveal in the heading, and never explains whether the solution was actually verified. A horror-game guide can fail in two separate ways: it can reveal more than the reader wanted, or express more certainty than its evidence supports. I would treat those as distinct content properties. Identify the two editorial decisions The puzzle page on The Skin Stapler Wiki https://theskinstapler.com illustrates the distinction. It publishes a numeric solution directly in its introduction and a section heading. Elsewhere, it explicitly leaves a tarot-card sequence unconfirmed because the available evidence does not establish the accepted order. It also distinguishes two possible contexts behind searches for a “blood puzzle.” These are useful observations for a design exercise. The page makes some uncertainty visible, while the direct answer placement suggests an opportunity to give readers more control over spoilers. My proposed design would answer two questions for every content block: How much does this reveal? What supports the claim? A verified answer can still be an unwanted spoiler. A vague hint can still be wrong. One label cannot stand in for the other. Model spoiler scope and evidence status separately For a small publishing system, I would begin with two independent fields. Spoiler scope might distinguish general orientation, a local puzzle hint, an exact solution, and a story reveal. Evidence status might distinguish an observed result, a published source claim, an editorial inference, and an unresolved question. These categories are proposed editorial choices, not descriptions of the site’s implementation. Consider a hypothetical puzzle entry. Its first paragraph points readers toward a nearby clue. Its second explains how to interpret that clue. Its third gives the accepted input. Those paragraphs have different spoiler scopes even if they all r