7 Key Elements of Great Mystery Games
Here's what every great mystery game has in common.
What exactly makes a mystery game great?
In today’s article, we’ll explore the 7 essential elements that define the best mystery games — factors that separate the bad from the good, and the good from the great.
1. Logical Consistency
I’ve chosen to place logical consistency at the top of the list for one reason: a mystery game that lacks logical consistency completely ruins the experience.
Mystery games are all about asking the player to piece together the story, just like a puzzle:
What happened?
Who was involved?
How and why?
A good mystery encourages the player to solve it by scrutinizing every detail.
Most stories don’t need to worry about such high levels of scrutiny, but that’s exactly why people find mysteries so enjoyable.
So mystery games have a tough job: they must appear confusing and contradictory on first glance, but ultimately — through the player’s interactions — need to make logical sense.
When the player tries to engage with the mystery and uncovers a contradiction that wasn’t intentionally placed by the developer — a plot hole — the experience is ruined.
Types of plot holes / logic errors to watch out for include:
Factual errors (especially for settings grounded in reality/history)
Impossible events (due to the laws of physics, etc.)
Character inconsistencies (especially professionals being incompetent)
Contradictory evidence (usually as a second-order effect: two pieces of evidence imply two things that can’t both be true)
Impossible timelines (see above)
Information gaps (missing clues make the mystery unsolvable)
Loose threads (the suggestion that a mystery can be solved when it has no answer)
As mystery creators, we often intentionally create these situations on purpose because — just like a magic act — the more impossible situations we set up, the more thrilled the audience will be when the solution is made clear.
However, sometimes we bite off more than we can chew, and accidentally create a contradiction without a logical answer hiding behind it.
And it’s frustrating from the player’s standpoint: every mystery gives you questions to think about and promises a logical solution, but only so many actually go on to fulfill that promise by the end.
If the developer is asking the player to think logically, but the developer can’t even think logically themselves, what reason does the player have to keep going?
Trust is everything in a mystery game.
When you fail to deliver a logically consistent challenge, you lose the player’s trust.
The difference between a good and bad mystery game is logical consistency.
2. Puzzle Fairness
Authors during the Golden Age of detective fiction mastered the art of fairness in mysteries 100 years ago.
They were so passionate about figuring out what makes a mystery fair that they invented sets of rules to be followed.
There is way too much for me to say about puzzle fairness to fit it all into a single article — I already wrote about balancing difficulty here — so I encourage you to read the rules of fair play yourself.
Many of my own insights that I talk about in these articles come from my understanding of those rules, which I first learned about in 2010, and I still learn more about them all the time.
As I became more familiar with the rules of fair play, and as I started developing my own puzzle games, I began to realize (or at least, I strongly believe) that those rules also represent an early form of puzzle game design.
Both disciplines are founded on the same core principles:
Giving the player a fighting chance (difficulty vs. skill)
Introducing new clues/mechanics in a natural progression
Rewarding observation, logical reasoning, and deduction
Creating satisfying “aha!” moments when learning the solution
The key difference is that puzzle games tend to abstract way the story elements, almost to a point where many modern puzzle games reject having a story at all.
But having a story is absolutely essential to the mystery game experience.
Which brings us to our next point…
3. Immersive Atmosphere
A great mystery game pulls players into its world through strong visuals, sound design, and storytelling. And a poorly designed atmosphere can make even an interesting mystery feel dull or disconnected.
Aside from pure immersion, a game’s atmosphere is also often utilized in the mystery-solving process. That’s because, unlike books and movies, games allow the player to freely explore its fictional environment to search for clues.
Perhaps the truly observant players will notice subtle hints that others will take for granted. Maybe the environment adds interesting context to the puzzles you’re solving. Or the answers you sought were right beside you the whole time, making for a shocking twist ending.
On the other hand, an underutilized atmosphere discourages the player from doing any searching at all. Why would anything interesting be hidden in an environment that doesn’t look like its creator put much care into making it?
I know it can be hard for devs with small budgets, but adding more detail into your environments will greatly increase the value of your game. Again, players are all about observation, and they love exploring to search for hidden secrets and clues.
Place things that make players ask questions: “Why is this here? What does this mean?” And be sure to follow up with satisfying answers.
And sounds are just as important for atmosphere — it’s no coincidence that all the best mystery games have killer soundtracks!
4. Emotional Depth
Not every mystery game needs to make you shed a tear, but it should leave some kind of emotional impact.
Simply put, a mystery is much more engaging when players care about the outcome.
Emotional stakes — whether personal loss, ethical dilemmas, or deep character relationships — make a mystery feel meaningful rather than just a sequence of puzzles.
Sure, murder mysteries are inherently high-stakes, but there are plenty of murder mysteries that aren’t particularly deep, because they don’t make a relatable story.
Real emotional depth comes from making the story relatable to the audience.
Complex characters with personal motives, and stories with themes that go beyond “just solving a case,” add depth to an otherwise emotionless tale of investigation.
My advice is to figure out the kind of story you want to tell, and authentically relate it to your audience through your game.
The result will be a memorable and meaningful experience that will set it apart from every other mystery game.
5. Innovative Gameplay
What uniquely separates mystery games from books and movies is, of course, the gameplay.
The best mystery games utilize the interactivity of the video game medium to advance the solving of the mystery.
My approach to game development has either been focused on creating completely linear mystery games, or more interactive experiences in other genres.
However, once I realized I needed to combine those two approaches into one, the possibilities began to seem endless.
I truly believe that we have only scratched the surface of how video games can explore the solving of mysteries, and there is significant innovation to uncover.
Note here that innovative gameplay doesn’t have to mean original gameplay.
I’m not talking about coming up with a totally unheard of mechanic for your core game loop that nobody understands how to use.
When you are innovating, you are adding something new to an existing formula.
This strategy often works for indie games that seek to copy popular games and modify them with a small twist.
So generally speaking, when we talk about innovative gameplay in mystery games, we’re looking at games that take the conventions of the mystery genre and add an interesting new element on top.
And the best kinds of innovations are so captivating that new games rush to copy them, even becoming staples of the genre.
Some tips for coming up with innovative gameplay mechanics:
Challenge traditional assumptions (does every mystery game really need X?)
Blend unusual genres (ever heard of a mystery cooking game?)
Identify common weaknesses in the genre and turn them into strengths
6. Satisfying Answers
There’s nothing more frustrating than playing a mystery game all the way to the end, only to realize that the solution wasn’t worth the time and effort.
Just like in general video game design, it is important to respect the player’s time.
Creating a satisfying solution to a mystery is very similar to creating a satisfying solution to other puzzles in video games.
The solution should leverage foreshadowing — using the careful placement of clues to make the answer reasonably predictable.
That is to say, if the player were to go through the game a second time (or if they were more experienced in the mystery genre) then they should be able to reliably figure out the solution.
Trying to make a mystery impossibly difficult to solve doesn’t make it a more satisfying answer (see our previous discussion on Puzzle Fairness).
The satisfaction comes from being able to use logical reasoning and critical thinking to piece together the answer.
Logic — by definition — always works the same way.
When you get better at thinking logically, mysteries get easier to solve.
As a mystery novice, most of the fun comes from being surprised at the shocking twists and turns.
Once you’ve learned how to think like a detective, the fun comes from accurately deducing the answer, even if it’s no longer a surprise.
And knowing how to make a good twist boils down to one thing: having a secret worth hiding, and building the game’s story and mechanics around that secret.
By contrast, a mystery game with no great secret — or a reveal with no emotional or thematic connection — would obviously leave anyone unsatisfied.
7. General Enjoyment
Also known as “fun.”
Yes, even if your game meets all the previous criteria, you still need to make sure your game is actually fun to play.
“Fun” may be a subjective term: different people naturally enjoy playing different kinds of games. So sometimes it is just a matter of product-market fit. Your game doesn't need to appeal to everyone, but it should resonate strongly with its intended audience.
But if everyone who plays it says it feels more like work than play — it’s a sign that something is missing.
Great games make you want to keep playing them.
Great mystery games strike the right balance between challenge, engagement, and immersion. They ensure that each deduction, puzzle, and revelation gives you more motivation than it takes away.
And the key to that is having a well-designed gameplay loop with high levels of polish.
If players walk away feeling mentally stimulated and eager to play again (or generally wanting more content), you’ve succeeded in crafting an enjoyable experience.
Conclusion
So in summary, these are the 7 key elements of great mystery games:
Logical Consistency
Puzzle Fairness
Immersive Atmosphere
Emotional Depth
Innovative Gameplay
Satisfying Answers
General Enjoyment
It's not easy to do a good job on them all, that’s for sure — but don't let it discourage you.
By the way — if that list looks familiar, that’s because it’s also the judging criteria for our upcoming Mystery Game Jam!
So I hope this article helps guide you in the right direction!
Also, with a little over 2 weeks until the jam officially begins, we’ve reached 180 registered participants — already exceeding the previous year’s count!
I know it’s early, but thank you all for your interest!
I can’t wait to see what this year brings!
(And if you’re curious about the event, more details can be found here.)
Thanks for reading!
If you want to learn how to make your own mystery game…
Or if you want to discover the best mystery games before anyone else…
Join our 350+ member Mystery Gamedev community today!
And please consider sharing our newsletter with a friend — we appreciate it!