TurnaboutLLM: A Deductive Reasoning Benchmark from Detective Games
On the map: LLM reasoning → Reasoning for agents, planning and code
Abstract (arXiv)
This paper introduces TurnaboutLLM, a novel framework and dataset for evaluating the deductive reasoning abilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) by leveraging the interactive gameplay of detective games Ace Attorney and Danganronpa. The framework tasks LLMs with identifying contradictions between testimonies and evidences within long narrative contexts, a challenging task due to the large answer space and diverse reasoning types presented by its questions. We evaluate twelve state-of-the-art LLMs on the dataset, hinting at limitations of popular strategies for enhancing deductive reasoning such as extensive thinking and Chain-of-Thought prompting. The results also suggest varying effects of context size, the number of reasoning step and answer space size on model performance. Overall, TurnaboutLLM presents a substantial challenge for LLMs' deductive reasoning abilities in complex, narrative-rich environments.
Key facts. Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reasoning for agents, planning and code, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 16 of its 22 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 21 May 2025.
Builds on
16 of 22 references.
References · 16
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4 more
- 2024Large Language Models Fall Short: Understanding Complex Relationships in Detective Narrativescited by 14
- 2023Kani: A Lightweight and Highly Hackable Framework for Building Language Model Applicationscited by 11
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Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2025: 1; 2026: 3.
4 papers.
- 2025CaughtCheating: Is Your MLLM a Good Cheating Detective? Exploring the Boundary of Visual Perception and Reasoningcited by 4
- 2026RoboVista: Evaluating Vision Language Models for Diverse Robot Applicationscited by 2
- 2026RECON: Benchmarking Agent Memory for Compositional Reasoning over Long Contextscited by 1
- 2026Towards High-Level Semantic Intelligencecited by 0
- 2026Towards High-Level Semantic Intelligence27 Jul 2026
- 2026RECON: Benchmarking Agent Memory for Compositional Reasoning over Long Contexts18 Jul 2026
- 2026RoboVista: Evaluating Vision Language Models for Diverse Robot Applications6 Jul 2026
- 2025CaughtCheating: Is Your MLLM a Good Cheating Detective? Exploring the Boundary of Visual Perception and Reasoning23 Jun 2025
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2024GameArena: Evaluating LLM Reasoning through Live Computer Games
- 2024DetectiveQA: Evaluating Long-Context Reasoning on Detective Novels
- 2025Baba is LLM: Reasoning in a Game with Dynamic Rules
- 2026How Clued up are LLMs? Evaluating Multi-Step Deductive Reasoning in a Text-Based Game Environment
- 2026Clueing up LLMs with Tool-Augmented Deductive Reasoning
- 2025Multi-Turn Puzzles: Evaluating Interactive Reasoning and Strategic Dialogue in LLMs
- 2026Watson & Holmes: A Naturalistic Benchmark for Comparing Human and LLM Reasoning
- 2026Evaluating Interactive Reasoning in Large Language Models: A Hierarchical Benchmark with Executable Games