Bus Detective

Bus Detective aims to explore how authorial dominance in video games affects our decisions. We try to provoke deep reflection on the nature of this hegemony among players by deconstructing the "meaning" and "ultimate goal" implanted by the author in the game.

 

The game is set on a minibus carrying the characters played by the players, Leo and his friend Silvie, to the city center to participate in a detective club activity. To pass the time on the way, they decide to play a detective game—assuming that a murder will occur on the bus and detailing the process of this murder. The goal of the game is to concoct as fascinating a murder deduction as possible based on the situation on the bus. However, after the deduction ends, an unexpected event occurs in the game—the bus explodes.

 

Basic Gameplay

In the "Bus Detective" game, players will adopt an overhead perspective, immersing themselves in the environment of a minibus. Their task is to identify potential murderers, victims, and weapons based on observations of the characters and items inside the vehicle. During this process, players will work closely with the character Silvie to analyze and discuss various clues and information about the case. This information also endows the player's actions with meaning, allowing them to deeply experience and immerse themselves in this virtual world, realizing player agency.

 

When players follow this information and select the "correct" murderer, victim, and weapon, they can move on to the next phase. Because only by making these "correct" judgments based on the information provided within the game can players possibly unlock one of the seven storylines in the game. Conversely, if players choose to deviate from Silvie's suggestions and hints, most of the choices made will be deemed illogical or unreasonable by Silvie, as they contradict the clues and guidance established in the game.This "correctness" briefly gives players the feedback they anticipate, only to find that the game has failed. Meanwhile, the bus explodes.

 

About the Explosion

After logical actions are frustrated, the explosion becomes a turning point in the logic of the players' actions. They will reconsider the winning conditions of the game, shifting from deducing the virtual case to finding out who caused the bus explosion. However, this also cannot lead to victory, because choices that do not comply with Silvie's suggestions and hints are considered illogical.Furthermore, at this moment, players are only playing the role of Leo and cannot act in their own identity. The player has information about the vehicle explosion, but Leo does not, so the player cannot alert others through viable actions in the game that an accident will really happen on the bus. The gap between the player's currently viable actions and the actions they hope to execute frustrates the player's agency and detaches them from Leo's identity.

 

At this stage, the game also provides new possibilities for player agency. During the deduction phase of the game, players have four opportunities to question Silvie's story, but if they question more than twice, Silvie will get angry. If they ignore Silvie's emotions and choose to question all four times, the game will enter another ending—Silvie doesn't want to continue with the player and leaves the bus immediately, ending the game. This saves Leo and Silvie from death, but the game still shows a failure in the end. The explosion here alienates the plot of the game, prompting players to consider different ways to win, yet continuously frustrating them, making the explosion revert to an event unrelated to victory. Moreover, by reversing the player's expectations and conventional logic, the game allows players to constantly step out of their roles, ultimately leading to the abandonment of agency.

 

About Silvie 

The "detective game" that Leo and Silvie play is a meta-game within the game. In this meta-game, Silvie provides all the valid information, including the gameplay and all the information about characters and items. It can be said that Silvie controls this game, all the choices of the players are guided by her. This makes Silvie the controller of this meta-game; this is not only reflected in her guidance to the players but also in her non-negotiability. During the deduction phase of the game, Silvie refuses to be questioned, as mentioned above, when Silvie is continuously doubted, Leo and Silvie will get off the bus. After this saving ending, in the hidden ending, Sil will tell the players that letting the players get off the bus does not mean that the players saved them, but represents Silvie's rejection of the player.In the hidden ending of the game, SIlvie's identity is not only the controller of the original "detective game", but also represents the entire game system - the entire game controller.

 

Here, the game employs Brecht's Alien effect, breaking the fourth wall of the game and alienating SIlvie's actions. SIlvie communicates directly with the player through the screen, she no longer demands the game character Leo to play the game in her way, but asks the player to play the game in her way. She constantly emphasizes in her words that are both suggestions and threats - only by following the rules can you achieve victory, and ignoring her warnings will only lead to failure.

 

SIlvie has become the personification of the game system, and her advice to players symbolizes the limitations in video games. In the conventions of video games, the game tries to hide the existence of these limitations, trying to rationalize them as part of the game story. But Bus Detective exposes them through Silvie, revealing a fact - it's not the player controlling the game, but the game controlling the player, shattering the illusion of player autonomy.

 

How to win 

Even in the game, only choices made based on the explicit or implied information of the game can let the player experience agency. But these choices lead to a game failure. The only combination that leads to victory is a random choice that is completely illogical, and the reason it leads to victory is that SIlvie considers it to be the only unique choice that is unexpected. This seems to contradict Silvie asking players to play according to the rules of the game, however, both are direct embodiments of system hegemony.This makes achieving victory in the game the most difficult because it prevents players from navigating to this ending through any valid information. But it is also the simplest; players have a chance to 26 find this combination only if they ignore all information in the game and give up meaningful actions in the game. Even if they are lucky, they might find it in one go. Therefore, if the players continually focus on agency, using the game's information and guidance to make choices, they will almost never win. This ending directly leads to the collapse of the significance of player agency.

 

The illogical victory path in the game is a defamiliarization of traditional game logic, forcing players to rethink the meaning of the game and victory. The illogical victory questions the meaning of victory, in fact, all game victories are defined by the author, and the player has no say. Victory is the author's approval obtained by the player through constantly speculating on game information and hints (under the guidance of the author). Bus Detective gives players useless approval through this illogical victory, making victory frustrating.

 

In the "Bus Detective" game, the illogical victory path has realized the defamiliarization of traditional game logic. It forces players to step out of their roles and re-examine the definition and meaning of the game and "victory". This kind of illogical victory path is actually questioning the essential meaning of victory: victory is only set and defined by the game's author, and players have no voice in the discussion of "victory", so winning the game is actually getting the author's approval; and through agency, they can enjoy the journey of gaining approval. However, "Bus Detective" eliminates the joy by constructing an illogical victory path, making this regular "victory" an ineffective approval, thus making the concept of victory frustrating.The illogical victory also thwarts the player's agency experience, they cannot get the expected response from meaningful actions, but get their expected response (victory) from meaningless actions. And the reason for these has always existed in all games: 27 the author's authority. However, unlike traditional video games trying to hide this hegemony, the system represented by SIlvie blatantly reveals her authority over players. This also shifts player-centricity to system-centricity, and player agency is transferred to system agency. At this frustrating moment, players can face up to their relationship with the game and scrutinize the nature of the game system.