Welcome to our review of Darkside Detective, released on Switch and filled with hilarious conversations and a smart story.
Where cultists crawl, where demons dwell, where the occult… occults? *ahem* That’s where you’ll find Detective Francis McQueen, the lead investigator of the criminally underfunded Darkside Division. When evil darkens the doorsteps of Twin Lakes City – hell, even when it just loiters around shop fronts or hangs out in shady alleyways – he’s there, ready to investigate the cases that nobody else will.
He is The Darkside Detective.
The Darkside Detective is a micro-adventure game with a distinct sense of humor. It’s being developed for PC & Mac, and consists of a series of humorous bite-size investigations into the occult and extraordinary.
Spread over 6 cases, it is up to you, the player, to find out the truth amidst all the story and figure out how everything is linked. For my review, I will purposely limit myself to the first case called Malice in Wonderland, despite having finished more. I want everyone to really enjoy this game as much as I did! We start off looking for a missing girl. Our great detective arrives on the scene, to find a father that seems not really interested, smoking and drinking as you speak to him. He sends you on your way to talk to the nanny. You start exploring the room you are in, finding objects and getting clues along the way.
In great detective style, McQueen and officer Dooley start going from room to room. There is a hallway, which is locked. There are bedrooms, there is an attic, …. In one of the rooms, you meet the mother of Alice, who seems more in touch with reality as she is crying a lot, asking, nay, pleading you to find her baby. Her baby is 7 years old though. After talking to her, you head on over to the nanny. She is a weird one, to say the least, correcting McQueen on his pluralization of the family name, nothing really comes out of talking to her. You keep exploring more and more places.
As time progresses, you find more and more items as well, items that are clearly there for a purpose, eventually you use a lightbulb that you found to create a working lamp, … There is not a lot of depth to the earlier puzzles along the way, what is most important is that you pay close attention to what the characters tell you.
The conversation is everything in this game, ranging from pop culture references to outright silly quotes, the text is what keeps this game so intriguing. Take for example when the father tells you he has not had deep conversations with his daughter because she is just seven years old or in another case when officer Dooley is trying to bribe the librarian to get out of his late fees.
I have played a few games like this in my life, none were too memorable. A good story and a few one-liners are usually what keeps the genre afloat, but in Darkside detective, the story is actually fun and interesting throughout. It has yet to bore me and that is a definite bonus when rating games!
In conclusion, this game is worthy of your time if you got a few bucks to spare or you can even spend some of those gold points to buy this, I am sure you won’t regret it! My rating stands at 80%!
