Abstract:

The development of new media and technologies has facilitated the convergence of media and arts, triggering innovations in artistic genres and giving rise to new forms of expression and aesthetics. As a genre with multi-media attributes, script murder mystery (jubensha) constructs a cross-media interactive form under the dual goals of enhancing literary expression and gaming experience. It integrates various media formats—text, images, video, audio, comics, VR, and AR—into a gamified, hypertextual, and visualized genre. The functions of this genre are threefold: satisfying young people’s need for“low-stakes socialization,” enabling youth groups to acquire diverse life experiences and new forms of self-identity through role-playing, and providing a channel for emotional catharsis and a window for psychological counseling. By innovating traditional narrative paradigms, script murder mystery constructs a new narrative morphology that transcends boundaries, positing“narrative as a fusion of gameplay, socialization, and experience.”Furthermore, the success of its narrative logic has influenced narrative innovations in novels, interactive fiction, and film/ television dramas. Specifically, films of the script murder mystery, characterized by their puzzle-solving gameplay narrative style and a visual aesthetics serving this style, endow cinema with new vitality, demonstrating significant potential to evolve into a distinct“new genre.”

Key words: media convergence, script murder mystery, genre morphology, genre function, genre reciprocity