The Darkside Detective

I liked this game quite a bit. The cases were full of humor and the puzzles were not too challenging. Oddly I got attacted to the pixel people. I play it to the end which is a rare occurance. I was hoping that there was a second game.

Straightforward point-and-click episodes that can be solved in half an hour or less, ideal for people unfamiliar with the genre or who find more traditional point-and-click games too random or unfathomable. The 9 available episodes are independent cases of varying length, solving paranormal mysteries parodying the X Files. The humor is simple and for the most part the solutions are very logical; the last case, however, is the worst because it breaks from this, forcing you to travel back and forth until certain conditions are met, and the solutions are really random and obscure. There are a few puzzles, which are mostly simple and small, offering a moderate challenge. I enjoyed the game except for the last case, which is too big and feels rushed and illogical; I only finished it because I found a walkthrough, otherwise I wouldn't bother. Veteran fans of the genre will find this game too simple and shallow to be enjoyable. The writing is adequate but again, the last case is awful.

The jokes are right up my alley (most of the time). I prefer slightly more high-res graphics even when it comes to retro (effectively this game is 160x90 pixels, I grew up with 320x200) but they are still acceptable and nice. All in all we had a lot of fun solving the puzzles, although we came across two major issues: - Regular instances of pixel hunting. Sometimes we overlooked important items and thus got stuck. - Surprising new conversation options after talking to someone for the second time (when you would normally expect that there are no new options) or other modifications to screens that you would probably not think of returning to. But even with these flaws, it's still a rather nice game and the money was well spent. Somewhere between 3 and 4 stars.

The pixelated graphic is nice but if it were not for the praisable humorous dialogs, I'd say this game is a tutorial for children in the adventure genre. Puzzles are easy and there is no story in the game as it is divided into episodes, with just superficial facts connecting them together.

This is a funny point and click adventure that I’ve really enjoyed playing. You play as Francis McQueen with his side-kick Dooley to solve the Darkside cases. There are the main 6 cases along with 3 bonus cases. I’m itching for more, though the third case is the “season 1 finale”. (And there is definitely a Darkside Detective 2 coming out in 2020 and there’s a kickstarter for it at the moment). The puzzles are simple, easy. The combination of items and using them is a bit cartoony with logic. I found the cases to be memorable and unique, and I had all around fun with it. The humor is good, but may not please everyone. It’s about a 3 hour game for myself. The Darkside Detective isn’t rated, but it’s clean and I recommend it to any age group.