The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark

Very much more of the same as the first game, which is simplistic point-n-click game with delightful writing. Really, like 90% of your enjoyment of these games is derived from whether or not you enjoy the writing. Art is great, music is good, but no voice acting, which is ok. but also barely any sounds and animations at all. Lots of punny and 4th wall jokes. I love puns, but I feel like they went a bit over with self-aware humor. Currently there are less cases then in the first game, but it took me almost twice as much time to go through them. Didn't really stumble on puzzles, I just tried to read everything.

Only played the first two missions so far but the writing is amazing, fun characters from the first one return, and the puzzles are fun but not too hard. I still used a walkthrough for parts of it but I never felt as though the solution was random. And it's definitely made with so much love, like the first one.

First off, if you liked the first one you don't really need to read further, just buy it. The Darkside Detective series is a pretty traditional old school point and clicker with a paranormal setting. The main character is the Mulder type from X-files, he solves all those paranormal cases and yet nobody really believes him. And just like X-files, it is told in episodes which for me averaged out at 1 hour each for the 6 episodes (though there will be more episodes added it seems, just like with the first game...at least there is a placeholder for more episodes). 100%ing it took me 7-8 hours in total. The game is not that hard and has a kinda laid back atmosphere which makes it perfect for a short play after work (helped by the around 1 hour playtime per episode). Graphics are lovely 8bit with a fitting soundtrack and the writing and characters are great. I definitely recommend this, but if you haven't play the first game first. If you want more games like this, I recommend Inspector Waffles which gave me a very similar vibe but with a cat detective twist (which I loved).

In ‘The Darkside Detective’, the final case ended with Officer Dooley being teleported to the Darkside, leaving players with a cliffhanger. ‘The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark’ continues the first game left off, with Detective McQueen searching for Dooley. You don’t need to have played the first game to enjoy ‘Fumble’, but it’ll certainly help. Like ‘TDD’, ‘Fumble’ is treated like a season of a TV show, with the overarching story being told over 9 cases or episodes (6 base cases + 3 free DLC cases). Given where things were left off, the first case of ‘Fumble’ is less funny compared to the others that follow. It just goes to show what a great comedy duo McQueen and Dooley make, with the former serving the setup and the latter delivering the punchline. The cases in ‘Fumble’ is longer than the ones in ‘TDD’, for better or worse. In a few instances, I thought the longer length hindered the cases’ pacing. This might also have been due to the few obtuse, less well-hinted puzzles. Yet, the game’s humour – especially when Dooley is back in action – helped balance things out. If you enjoyed the humour of ‘TDD’ (i.e., puns, self-referential laughs, middlebrow jokes, pop culture and sci-fi/fantasy satire), you’ll definitely like what ‘Fumble’ has to offer. I still love the earnestness with which McQueen and Dooley have in their investigation of the paranormal, and how it’s usually only they who take the strange happenings in Twin Lakes very seriously. I just finished the second DLC case, ‘One Flew Into the Cuckoo’s Nest’, and enjoyed it. There’s one more free DLC case on the way, but the release date hasn’t been announced yet. Will the last case be a cliffhanger or the end of the series? Regardless, I can only assume that it’ll be great based on what I’ve played so far. I’ve been having a lot of fun playing ‘Fumble’, so while this game may not be complete at this time, I still feel confident in recommending it to all fans of point-and-click adventure games.

I had really enjoyed season one of The Darkside Detective because, for the most part, the puzzles made sense and were logical. I found that the sequel, A Fumble in the Dark, lacked that to a degree. Many times I found myself combining things for no logical reason, sometimes even with the main character commenting to this fact of how little sense it made. There were also other times where I knew what the game wanted me to do but until I did something specific like go to a certain room I couldn’t proceed. Overall though the cases are still enjoyable and the humour is still as great as ever. It is this that saves it in my eyes as I really do enjoy the characters; the humour and the world of the game. Hopefully they return to more sensible puzzles in future sequels. The art style is what it is, you’ll either enjoy pixel games or you won’t. I played A Fumble in the Dark on Linux. It never crashed on me and I didn’t notice any bugs. Alt-Tab didn’t work. I could manually save at any time (save for certain cut scenes) but there was just the one save file. There is still auto save for those who prefer that. The game ran great performance wise. There were no graphics options but this is a pixel game after all. The game did seem to use Vsync even if there was no option to toggle it. Game Engine: Unity Graphics API: OpenGL Save System: Manual and Auto Game Version Played: 0.10.202.67r GPU Usage: 0-70 % CPU Usage: 2-7 % VRAM Usage: 388-598 MB RAM Usage: 1.8-2.2 GB Frame Rate: 132-144 FPS I paid $13.09 CAD for the game and finished it in 7 hours and 42 minutes which made it more than fair value wise for me. My System: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X | 16GB DDR4-3000 CL15 | MSI RX 580 8GB Gaming X | Mesa 21.0.3 | Manjaro 21.0.3 | Mate 1.24.1 | Kernel 5.12.1-2-MANJARO | AOC G2460P 1920*1080 @ 144hz