What Makes a Good Detective Game?

The other day, I was watching this movie called Mystic River. It’s about the murder of a young woman, called Katie Markum, and the two detectives who find her killer. And it’s fascinating to see these guys do their job. The movie goes into quite considerable detail about how these detectives crack the case, and so we see them conducting interviews, chasing down leads, and figuring things out by going through the facts.

POWERS: What makes her swerve without hitting the breaks? DEVINE: I dunno, maybe something in the street. POWERS: Maybe, maybe And as I was watching, I started to think about how you could turn this into a video game. Of course, there have already been plenty of detective games, from classic point and click adventures like KGB, to murder mystery side-quests for Assassin’s Creed, to full-blown detective adventures like Murdered: Soul Suspect.

But few of them have really scratched that itch for me. It’s very rare that I’ll get completely involved in one of these games - you, know, really, turning the clues and witness statements around in my brain as I work towards that all important “eureka” moment, that defines so much of detective fiction. It just doesn’t really happen. So in this video, I want to try and figure out what makes a good detective game. How do developers come up with interesting mechanics that really let players unleash their inner Sherlock?

But to achieve this, I think we first need to go back to Mystic River and look at how these two detectives crack the case, so we can figure out the best way to turn these investigation processes into video game mechanics.

First, the detectives gather information. They get clues from the crime scene, like the slug from the bullet that killed Katie, a list of phone numbers for hotels, from her backpack, and the 911 call to the police. 911 TAPE: Son what’s your name? He wants to know her name! Your name son, what’s your name? Plus, they question people, like Katie’s parents, her friends, and a woman who witnessed the crime. PRIOR: Then it stalled, and someone said hi.

DEVINE: Someone said hi? PRIOR: Hi. Okay, so this stuff is pretty easy to pull off in a game, right? LA Noire, for example, managed evidence collection just fine, with 3D objects that you can spin and manipulate. And Condemned had some cool gadgets to reveal fingerprints and bloodstains in the crime scene. Plus, loads of games have dialogue trees for talking to people - and we see those crop up in detective games all the time.

So, that’s no issue either. It’s the next bit that’s really tricky. So, the movie then shows the real detective work, as the two cops work the case.

We see them expose people’s lies. When Katie’s friends say she wasn’t dating anyone, Devine brings up the hotel phone numbers. DEVINE: A 19 year old girl isn’t going to Las Vegas alone, so who was she going with? PIGEON: Brendan DEVINE: Brendan Harris? PIGEON: Brendan Harris, yeah. So, the information also lets them follow leads. They can now talk to Brendan Harris, for one thing. Plus, the ballistics on the slug match a gun that was used in a liquor store hold-up during the 80s. So let's go check that out.

LOONIE: I know who did it! Name, was Ray Harris. Used to call him ‘Just Ray’. Next, the cops can find connections between the evidence. Ray Harris is obviously related to Brendan Harris. Time to call him in for further questioning. HARRIS: Why do you keep asking me if my father had a gun? DEVINE: The gun that killed your girlfriend is the same gun your father used in a robbery 18 years go. And finally, the detectives can make deductions.

By looking at the current information from a different perspective… POWERS: She doesn’t hear a scream she hears a gunshot, before that a hi, which tells me the Markum girl is either very friendly or she knew ‘em. …or by making logical arguments. DEVINE: He said her name. POWERS: She’s a dead girl, you refer to her as a she. DEVINE: Yeah but, how does the kid know that? The girl is dead in the park, how does he know that the blood in the car came from a woman.

Now, detective games have tried to turn all of this stuff into gameplay. But one of the most common ways of representing it is through simple multiple choice questions. Look at this bit in Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us, where Bigby picks up evidence and then the player gets to answer a question about the clue’s significance. BEAUTY: What? What are you thinking? BIGBY: This is the same dress as the one in the book about Snow.

I think Smith was dressing Lily up in it. A similar thing happens in Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments when you’re questioning people. At specific points, a button will appear on screen allowing you to uncover a lie in the witnesses’s statement, and pick the response that’ll reveal their mistruth. I don’t think this works at all because the player is completely prompted by the potential answers. They’re not coming up with their own thought, so much as simply looking for the answer that sounds most sensible.

Or, in some cases, just guessing. Get the answer wrong in Sherlock Holmes and you’ll be told to give it another try. But I think this shows the real game design challenge of making a detective game. Because the very act of testing whether the player has figured stuff out, can inadvertently give away the answer - which removes pretty much any sense of satisfaction when you get it right. “You connected the evidence,” says Telltale.

Woo, go me, I’m awesome.

Anyway. One way that games have fixed this multiple choice problem is by simply giving way more potential answers. Look at this deduction screen in the game Detective Grimoire. It’s very similar to the one in The Wolf Among Us, really: at a specific point in the game, Grimoire will need you to answer a question about the events at hand. GRIMOIRE: Have I uncovered a secret in here? But instead of picking a single answer, you have to create a thought by smushing together a number of disparate ideas.

And with eight different pictures to put in two slots, and two pickers with four statements each, thanks to the magic of “combinatorial explosion”, there are a whopping 896 possible combinations meaning that while it still prompts you a fair bit, at least randomly guessing is out of the equation. GRIMOIRE: That little girl isn’t warm enough for my beard to have happened. Uhhhh… no. Another example can be found in the Android game The Trace, where you answer questions by dragging on the clues and observations you have picked up.

Because you often need multiple answers for each question, it’s much harder to simply guess your way through the game. For lies, the Ace Attorney games have a good system where witnesses give testimony and you can present evidence that contradicts one of their statements. So here, Gumshoe says that the thief only goes after the most valuable art pieces in a heist, but we know that the item that was nabbed - a sacred urn - has no monetary value.

So if we present this evidence in response to this statement, we absolutely dunk on the poor fella because we just found a huge error in his testimony. Being able to choose from any of roughly five statements, and able to present from a huge list of clues and profiles, makes guessing near impossible. Especially because the game has a life bar that is diminished if you make a misplaced objection. So you’ll really need to think hard about which piece of evidence to present during each cross examination.

Okay, so this is much better. Obviously. And it can lead to great detective bits like this section from Life is Strange, where you need to pick the right clues from an evidence board, to figure out where Nathan Prescott took someone after a party. The huge number of things you can pick from largely gets rid of guesswork. And it encourages you to look for actual connections like dates and times, or the fact that this dude’s car has a broken taillight so this must be a photo of his number plate.

Plus, the game has some nice feedback for when you offer the wrong answer, with a small hint that will help you along. MAX: If I can match one of the text messages and transactions with Frank, then I can find the exact location.

But this set-up is still kinda giving the game away. Because while the player is no longer being completely prompted by the answers, they’re still being prompted by the text of the question, and it can give away that there’s even a question to be asked in the first place. Not to mention the fact that the game can come across as some condescending jerk who has already worked everything out and is just making sure that you are paying attention, making the player feel less like Sherlock, and more like Watson.

WATSON: How did I do? SHERLOCK: Well, John. Really well. I mean you missed almost everything of importance but, you know.

So perhaps we can go one step further, and just give the player the tools to point out contradictions and connections, without first prompting them with a question. That’s how it works in the aptly titled Contradiction. In this campy FMV game you interview suspects, and gather a big list of statements. You can then bump together any two statements that contradict each other to catch your interviewee in a lie. This is very different to Ace Attorney because in Ace Attorney you always know that you need to find a flaw in the current testimony.

The game won’t move on until you do. But in Contradiction you can leave witnesses and come back later, which means you can have loads of different conversations on the go at once and never know exactly who is lying, or which group of statements contain a lie. It means the player really needs to follow the case to know who is telling porkies. By the way, the most contradictory thing about this game is the ever changing colour of Inspector Jenk’s trousers.

They’re grey! He walks a few yards. They’re blue! What are you hiding, Jenks? Sorry. Sorry. Off topic. Where was I? Oh, yes. This works great for connecting two pieces of evidence, as well. I particularly like the system in Papers, Please which isn’t a detective game at all! It’s about working at a border patrol. But this system would work great in a murder mystery game. So in this game, you can’t just reject people from entering the country without providing a good reason, so you’ll first need to flag up a discrepancy between their dialogue or documents, and your rule book.

So you press the big red button, and can then highlight two things that are in contradiction. Perhaps, the expiry date on a person’s passport and the current date. Only then, will you be able to make your discrepancy. These systems are both great because the player is no longer responding to the game, as such, but instead telling the game that they have spotted something interesting. And in the case of Papers, Please, the ability to choose any two bits of text on screen is really awesome.

There are simply too many combinations for the player to just brute force a solution. The player has to get really specific about the connection for the game to accept that they’re on the right track. And it means that any piece of evidence can be used, not just the ones that the game deems worthy of putting into your inventory.

So this is a good solution for connecting evidence and exposing lies. But it doesn’t really hold up for making deductions. Lemme explain, using this puzzle from Discworld Noir. In this game, Lewton automatically jots down useful information in a handy notebook and you can combine two notes to make a deduction. And here, we connect a strange phrase that has been written on the wall of a crime scene, with the fact that the deceased was hung upside down.

LEWTON: If Mundy was hung upside down, and if Mundy wrote the message, then the message was upside down… And that’s a pretty good puzzle, right? But for it to work, the game needs to give you notes for the strange phrase, Azile, and also “Mundy Hung Upside Down”. And that last note can really give the puzzle away. Because turning thoughts into puzzle pieces, means that you’re not using your own logic but simply using the logic provided by the game.

But to get any better than this, we’d need a system that has no questions and nothing for the player to give as an answer. Which is impossible, right? Well I’m glad you asked! So, compare the Discworld thing to this puzzle in the lovely teeny-tiny rabbi detective game, The Shivah. Okay, so you’re reading the emails of this guy who died, Jack Lauder. And you see these concerning messages from a dude called Ethan G. Maybe he’s someone to track down?

But we can’t do anything without a surname. He might be the Goldwater that Jack’s wife mentions in this email. But Ethan G also talks about money, so maybe he’s from the accounting firm - Goldberg & Weiselbaum - mentioned in Jack’s ledger. Now here’s how we test our deduction. We load up a computer and log on to a fictional search engine. We type in Ethan Goldwater. No hits. Ethan Goldberg? Bingo. “With a warm rush of triumph”, the game says, “I knew I found my man”.

Too right, Rabbi Stone, when I first played the game that puzzle just felt electric. If the game had given us Ethan G and Goldberg or Goldwater as clues, it would be effortless to just snap them together and get the right name. But, instead, we have to take the information out of the game world - and into our heads, or perhaps into a notepad - and work on it, before slapping it back into the game and seeing if we’re right.

So, to take it back to Discworld Noir, if the player had to type that phrase in somewhere, they would have to do the logical work in their head, of spinning the phrase upside down to reveal that it is actually “3712V”. Personally, I think that would be an even better puzzle.

Of course, no game did the search bar better than Her Story. This is very different to the other games in this video. Instead of wandering around, picking up clues and visiting different locations, you simply sit in front of a computer and watch video clips. And yet, it is the best detective game I’ve ever played. By far. Hands down. A quick primer for those who haven’t played it. Her Story is - ostensibly - about figuring out who killed a man called Simon Smith.

But all you’ve got to go on is a bunch of old interviews with his wife, Hannah. These interviews are split up into about 300 video clips, but the only way to watch them is to type search terms into this box. And then, only the first five results, chronologically speaking, will be shown to you. So, you’re essentially given nothing tangible in this game. No clues, no statements, no observations written down in an in-game notepad.

But you will make deductions - and the only way to check if you’re correct is to type in some kind of search term to see if you get some new clips and can move the case forward. And when you do… it feels amazing. There’s nothing like it. No game comes as close to that “eureka” moment as this funny little game about searching for videos.

These systems are also great for following leads, which is something that most detective games just outright ignore. New locations and witnesses are automatically added as places and people of interest when you find evidence or talk to people. But in Blackwell, which is another game by the creators of The Shivah, you can type interesting place names you’ve heard or seen written down into the internet to get addresses - before they’re added to your map as locations you can visit.

So the magic of the search bar is that these people and place names are only acknowledged by the game as useful clues when the player has proven that they know they’re useful clues… by typing them in. To a less observant player, it’s just another random bit of text in the game world - but it really rewards those who pay close attention to the game. A similar system can be found in Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, which is the computer game version of the board game of the same name.

And yeah, I know there are more up to date remasters than this shabby ol’ DOS version but I just love that lo-fi full-motion video aesthetic. You can’t beat it. So in this game, you actually get a newspaper in the box, and have to scan through it for articles that might be relevant to your investigation - in this case, I’m looking for information on the mysterious deaths of three archeologists and this article right here might have some useful info - like, how the investigation of the second death was handled by a chap called Captain Herman Ramsey.

Then, in the game itself, you open up a directory of every person and business in London… okay, not really, but there’s roughly 200 entries in here, at least, so you’ll have to rifle through it to find the right person. The idea is to hide the relevant names in a sea of red herrings. So instead of just being presented with a list of locations you’ll need to visit, you need to figure out for yourself which locations are relevant by reading the newspaper carefully, and listening closely to the names and businesses mentioned during the video clips.

And if you’re wondering, if you go to a building that isn’t pertinent to the case it just plays a canned video like this. WATSON: How unfortunate, there’s not a soul in sight. SHERLOCK: Pity.

At this point, I think we’ve got pretty good systems to choose from for gathering information, exposing lies, finding connections, following leads, and making deductions. But, back to Mystic River. Now that the cops have all the information they need, they can use this to make an accusation. Don’t worry, I’m not going to completely spoil the film. So, what sort of system could we use to capture this in a detective video game?

Well, the one to avoid is Assassin’s Creed where you just walk up to people and accuse them. If you get it wrong, you lose some points and can try someone else. ALTON: I just lost my life’s love. How can you accuse me? If you get it right, hooray, a winner is you! It’s not very satisfying, either way. So we need some way of having the player really prove that they know who the suspect is, or how the murder went down. You know, do the proper Poirot reveal.

One approach I like can be found in Eagle Eye Mysteries - which is a surprisingly good kids game for DOS. Here, you go through the game by talking to people and looking at stuff and gathering loads and loads of statements. And then, when you feel ready to solve the case, you get to pick out the five most important statements in your log - and also the suspect’s profile. Like, the person who pinched the pizza recipe. This is a kids’ game, after all.

This is pretty simple, but it actually works quite well. The sheer number of statements you have and the need to present five of them, means you’ll need to have truly understood the crime to be able to input the right answer. Plus, it’s near impossible to just guess your way through. A similar take can be found in Lucas Pope’s upcoming tribute to old school Mac games, Return of the Obra Dinn. In this game, you get this pocket watch that you can use on skeletons to flash back in time to the moment that person died.

You can now walk around this freeze-frame vignette and try and figure out who is who, and how they got killed. And then - this is the important bit - you can write down your deduction in the Crew Muster Roll. You just get a list of names, and for each person you can use a few drop-down boxes to note that person’s fate. There are far too many combinations to guess your way to victory. You really have to know the answer or the game just won’t budge.

Maybe another way to prove your knowledge of the crime is through creating a timeline of what happened. In The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, you need to number these different ghostly images to piece together the correct order of events that transpired during the murder. And even multiple choice questionnaires are slightly more fun when presented at the end of the game. You’ve got feel really confident in your knowledge before you go into the courtroom at the end of a Consulting Detective case and pick the murderer and their motive for the crime at hand.

So, ultimately, a detective game is this fascinating game design challenge for anyone who wants to take it on. We admire detectives because they’re smart, right? They know the right questions to ask a witness, and they know how to chase down a lead. They can connect the dots to reveal the truth and use deductive reasoning to see things from a different perspective. Detective video games promise to let the player feel like that - in a way that no other medium really allows.

And yet, so many of these games just bungle the execution by holding the player’s hand and practically giving away the answer. But there is still hope. Ingenious developers have come up with all sorts of clever ways to test the player’s intelligence without accidentally prompting them, and I bet more systems will be made. In the mean time, let me know about games that really put your skills of deduction to the test, in the comments below.

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