Ludonarrativity and Player Agency in Sci-Fi Crime Games

This paper examines how sci-fi crime games reconcile a fixed criminal outcome with the need for meaningful player agency in the process of uncovering it. Its central argument is that detective games face a structural tension: the crime arc is predetermined, while the investigative arc must still feel open and controllable to the player. The author proposes that integrating science fiction elements, such as 3D-rendered autopsies and instant DNA analysis, can expand the perceived range of player action and increase immediacy in problem-solving. The study focuses on two games, Trauma Team and Detroit: Become Human, selected because they share a similar narrative setting but differ in structure, with the former being unilinear and the latter non-unilinear.

The methodology is a close-reading analysis of specific chapters from each game, combining narratological and ludological frameworks. Gameplay mechanics are coded across three investigative stages (discovery, analysis, and resolution) and mapped onto Roland Barthes's hermeneutic code, a framework for enigma and its decoding. Each coded segment is further classified by its sci-fi integration and by whether its agency is illusory or true, with true agency defined as the capacity of player choices to alter the narrative's course. The analysis addresses three questions: how linear and non-linear sci-fi crime games differ in using crime reconstruction as a player-controlled narrative, how the science fiction setting shapes mechanics, and how these mechanics function as vehicles for narrative.

The sample is limited to a small number of game segments, so the findings are qualitative and suggestive rather than broadly generalizable. The study's scope is confined to two titles and specific chapters, and it does not extend to the wider sci-fi or detective game market.