The 2 Types of Mystery Gamers: Active vs. Passive Solvers

How and why you should design with the right audience in mind

I’m happy to report that my progress on the Mystery Game Design Masterclass is coming along very smoothly. With nearly 100,000 words scripted out, I’ve essentially written a full novel’s worth of content on mystery game design. As the script nears completion, recording will begin this week.

We’re still on track to release in October, so please look forward to it!

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Today’s article will cover just a small snippet from the course, but it’s a very important topic for both developers and fans alike. Hope you enjoy!

What makes mystery games so special?

Interactivity is what sets mystery games apart from all other forms of mystery entertainment. If your game is entirely linear with little to no player input, then it’s not too different from reading a book or watching a movie.

Still, passive games have their unique benefits: they can go on much longer than a movie, and are often a lot less costly to produce. But if you aren’t taking advantage of interactivity to some degree, it can be incredibly difficult to market your game in a world where interactivity is seen as your game’s most important unique selling point.

Here’s the harsh truth: people play games because they want to interact with the game’s world. And so, while you might be able to get a way with a lack of interactivity when writing a mystery novel or creating a mystery film, you’ll have a much harder time when making a mystery game.

Mystery visual novels, walking sims, and similarly passive games certainly have their fans. But the mystery games that dominate the most across the gaming market always have some kind of gameplay. It’s not enough to present a mystery story, but to make the player an active participant in moving the story forward.

Active vs. Passive Solvers

There are two types of people who play mystery games: active solvers, and passive solvers.

Active solvers have fun by taking on the role of the detective and actively trying to solve the mystery.

Passive solvers have fun simply by experiencing the twists and turns of the mystery, letting the mystery solve itself.

A good mystery game knows which type of player it’s trying to target, as these two types of players have vastly different motivations for playing mystery games. When you try too hard to appeal to both, your game ends up appealing to neither.

Yet somehow, the authors of Golden Age mystery novels managed to get this balance right. Each story tried its best to remain “fair play” so that the reader had an equal chance with the detective to solve the mystery. So, while the passive solver always had the opportunity to passively turn the page, the active solver also had an equal opportunity to actively engage with the puzzle.

Now with our modern advances in technology, we can go beyond self-paced books and fully require the player to do the investigative work themselves. Of course, forcing the player to solve each puzzle before advancing the story can lead to its own share of problems, but overall it’s a new kind of storytelling that deserves to be explored.

From Passive to Active

The biggest reason why some players passively want to experience the mystery, while others actively want to solve it, is simply a matter of time.

Given enough time and dedication, many passive solvers eventually become active solvers. At first, the twists and turns are entertaining enough on their own. But after repeated exposure, it’s much harder to experience shock and surprise.

Now think about it logically: if you already know what’s coming next, then the story naturally becomes predictable, right? Well, then why not turn that predictability into a self-imposed challenge? And so the once-passive solver now pays extra attention to the mystery, hoping to prove that yes, they are indeed experienced enough with the genre to know what comes next.

I’ve experienced this transformation myself. When I first started out consuming mystery content as a teen, I was always seeking out the next big twist that would really blow my mind away. But now I always challenge myself to predict what happens next. Rather than being disappointed at the lack of surprise, I now experience satisfaction when a mystery follows the natural pattern of predictability that makes a mystery well-designed.

It’s similar to when a TV show that you used to watch as a kid takes on a whole new meaning once you become an adult. You suddenly understand a lot of subtext and references that totally flew over your head before.

So, you can think about it this way: most mystery media appeals to passive solvers, but only a subset of passive solvers will ever become active solvers. Does that mean you should only design for passive solvers because there are more of them? Not necessarily, since most people who play video games want active engagement, so you’re more likely to find active solvers specifically playing mystery games.

My point is that the distinction is mostly just a transformative process, and most people who enjoy passive solving will go on to eventually enjoy being active about it. Your game can exist at either end of that spectrum, but you have to make that design decision yourself so that your game can accurately appeal to the right audience.

Appealing to Active and Passive Solvers

Generally speaking, you’ll have to prioritize one type of player over the other, even when your mystery game has hybrid mechanics that appeal to both.

So here’s how you can design your mystery game to appeal to each type.