The whodunnit is one of television's greatest genres. There's tension, confusion, drama, and then faux-surprise when it's revealed that, yet again, it was the butler who did it.

But despite TV - and the ol' written word before that - falling in love with detective stories and exhausting them till the cows go missing, games have never really embraced them.

We get those B list Sherlock Holmes games every other year, sure, but they're not at the same level of the BBC's Sherlock. Instead, we get bargain bin efforts like Murdered: Soul Suspect.

In theory, a good detective game sounds *amazing*. Using ~player agency~ (sorry for the buzzword - it means 'doing what you want', basically), we could find clues, interrogate people, then finally solve the mystery! Oh wait, LA Noire did that, and was pants. But still!

So why haven't whodunnits and games ever come together in perfect harmony?

It's a mystery

We have, of course, had *some* good detective games over the years. The Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney series is probably the best example of a detective game formula that can consistently deliver a great experience.

These games - like most great detective stories - put the characters (not the mystery itself) in centre stage. This allows them to dodge the age old question of how to make a detective story mechanically interesting - how to make it a *game*.

The other way to tackle that problem, surprise surprise, is to *make the game mechanically interesting*. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective achieved this by putting you in the shoes of Sissel, a man trying to solve his own murder from the afterlife.

You've got four minutes to save a would-be victim from a would-be murderer. As a poltergeist, Sissel can inhabit inanimate objects and manipulate them to save innocent people. Jumping around the room into different objects and observing the outcome back in the real world (in real time) is a fun, unique take on the mystery genre.

But while these success stories are all well and good, they're just too rare. The fact I'm having to look back six years for a decent one says everything.

Even on console we're not exactly spoilt for choice. The Arkham series and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt have made Detective Mode a large part of many third person action games, but that still only makes up a tiny portion of those titles. The fact is, as an industry, we're just not very good at whodunnits.

Whynotdunnit?

This is partly due to the aforementioned problem of making a detective story mechanically interesting, something Murdered: Soul Suspect tried and, gallantly, failed to do.

But mobile is uniquely placed to solve these problems. Inspired by horror game Papa Sangre 2, in which you simply use your sense of hearing (and your phone's accelerometer) to avoid monsters, I'd love to see a blind detective game, following audio cues to solve some sonic charade.

Or how about an AR goose chase round your own house, along the lines of Night Terrors? It'd be cool to be hunting for clues under your own bed, inadvertently finding that Buzz Lightyear figurine from when you were five.

Lastly, I'd love to see a Minority Report style VR detective game, using motion tracking to whizz through clues, examining evidence like a badass Tom Cruise.

Okay, maybe I'm dreaming a little too much now.