Interactivity and Meta-Engagement in Digital Mystery Narratives

This Element provides an in-depth analysis of digital mystery game narratives through the lens of game studies approaches, game design principles, and literary theory. Beginning with an overview of important game studies concepts, the Element argues that the narrative effects of video games cannot be fully understood without an understanding of these principles. Next, the Element incorporates these ideas into a detailed analysis of digital mystery stories, illustrating how game design elements augment and enhance narrative impact. Finally, the Element applies these principles to several print texts, illustrating how game studies principles help to articulate interactive strategies. Ultimately, this Element argues that incorporating digital mystery narratives into the field of crime studies goes beyond simply broadening the canon, but rather that an understanding of game studies principles has the potential to augment discussions of interactivity and reader participation in all crime narratives, regardless of media form.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. Game Design Concepts and Crime Narratives; 2. Environmental Storytelling and Empathy in Gone Home & Firewatch; 3. Meaningful Choice, Implication, and Culpability in Pentiment & Disco Elysium; 4. Blurred Boundaries, Cross-Cultural Connections, and Real-World Reflections in Never Alone, Immortality, and Transmedia Mysteries; Conclusions and Implications: What the Narrative Strategies of Digital Crime Narratives Mean for Storytelling; Works Cited.

Product details

• Authors: Julialicia Case
• Publisher: Cambridge Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 28.02.2026
• EAN: 9781009365871
• ISBN: 978-1-009-36587-1
• Weight: 250 g
• Illustrations: Worked examples or Exercises
• Series: Elements in Crime Narratives
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; Information technology industries, Literary theory, Games development & programming, Computer games / online games: strategy guides, Games development and programming, Computer Games Design, Computer and video game industry