I remember playing the demo a year or so ago. I decided to purchase the game later as I'd found the demo version very funny. In The Darkside Detective we play as detective Francis McQueen who, together with officer Dooley, has to solve cases. These revolve around the paranormal - ghosts, zombies, monsters, magic... all sorts of things in this territory.

If you look at the pictures you can clearly see the minimalistic approach the creators opted for when it comes to graphics. It is reminiscent of some of the old LucasArts games. This is not an issue - quite the contrary! Initially, I missed the voice acting but because the soundtrack is great I didn't mind it later.

As you start up the first case you'll immediately notice one thing: this game is hilarious! Apart from Francis nobody takes things seriously - and even Francis practices his joke teller skills regularly. Puns are flying in from left and right. Even the case titles are meant to be references to famous movies: Tome Alone, Baits Motel, Loch Mess, just to name a few. This is a kind of humour that I like but some may consider it very cheap.

We have 6 of the afore-mentioned cases to do and after that we unlock bonus cases. These 3 are just as funny and interesting as their predecessors. Gameplay is pretty straightforward as Francis always mentions what the next best course of action should be. Puzzles make sense and there are areas where we cannot pick up objects until we completed other activities elsewhere - this makes it impossible to increase the inventory so we do not get confused later as to what item to use since we're not overloaded.

I can't really say anything against the game except it's too short. I found it refreshing and it was something I could have played longer. Its sequel either requires more or longer cases to ensure it is not just available for a long afternoon.

This isn't a horror game; it has no element of horror at all.
In fact it is a light and simple PnC game with lovely humor and IMHO great characters.
McQueen and Dooley are the new best bros in Video gaming.

Simply put each episode or chapter can be cleared in 60 minutes or less and focuses on a specific case that McQueen and Dooley must solve. The puzzles are mostly simple and I didn't have much difficulty playing through it, although you may need to move your mouse around a little slowly in screens to find certain items.

If you are looking for a light and comfy game to play, this is def. a game worth checking out.

This is a "thumbs up" review because I liked the game, but potential buyer be warned: this is more a collection of mini-games starring the same characters than one cohesive game. I was expecting each individual chapter to tie into a larger narrative with it all tying together at the end, but it's not that all. If I had known that going in, I probably would have enjoyed it more. Instead I felt underwhelmed but what was largely an enjoyable experience, because my hopes for the game were grander than the game ever intended to be. That's on me, not on the developers, but in case there are any players like me out there, just keep that in mind.

The game follows the adventures of Detective Francis McQueen, a hard-boiled cop who investigates paranormal cases in the mysterious town of Twin Lakes. Alongside his partner, Officer Dooley, McQueen delves into a series of strange and spooky cases, ranging from ghosts and demons to time travel and alternate dimensions. Each case is self-contained, but there are overarching plot threads that tie everything together and keep you engaged throughout the game.

The humor in The Darkside Detective is top-notch, with plenty of witty one-liners, clever references, and amusing banter between the characters. The game doesn't take itself too seriously, which makes it all the more enjoyable to play. The art style is also delightful, with colorful and detailed pixel art that perfectly captures the spooky and surreal atmosphere of the game.

As for the puzzles, they're challenging enough to keep you engaged but not so difficult that they become frustrating. The game strikes a good balance between logic puzzles and more creative challenges, and there are plenty of clues and hints scattered throughout the environment to help you out. I particularly enjoyed the way that each case had its own unique mechanics and puzzles, which kept things fresh and interesting.

One of the things I love about The Darkside Detective is the way that it embraces its horror elements while still being accessible to players of all ages. The game is spooky and atmospheric, but it never feels too scary or gory. It's the perfect balance of creepy and cute, with a healthy dose of humor thrown in for good measure.

Overall, I can't recommend The Darkside Detective enough. It's a fantastic game that's full of charm, wit, and spooky fun. Whether you're a fan of point-and-click adventures, horror games, or just great storytelling in general, this game is sure to delight and entertain you. So grab your detective hat and get ready to solve some supernatural mysteries!

Absolutely recommended.

Stupidly funny point & click with so many tropes in it, you'll lose track.
Love the retro graphics.
Colorful, so stupid you'll snork your coffee.

Runs great, no bugs found, no hiccups of any hind.
Except the hiccups I got from snorking too much coffee after the jokes lampooning pop-culture, TV and movies, and politics.

Puzzles aren't terribly difficult, lots of back and forth and forth and back and back and forth.
Lots to do and see- click everything, interact with everything, try to combine everything, try to use everything everywhere.

Some non-missable achievements (story related) and a bunch of missable achievements.
Yes, there are guides. But I feel like you'll lose alot of the joy of this game if you play it from a guide. Do what I said up there ^^^, and you'll be likely to get some of the the missable achievements without understanding what you needed to do to get them- until you get them.
You can play each case again separately, no need to replay the entire game, to pick up any missed achievements (and snork more coffee while seeing the same stupid jokes again).

Absolutely loved this game. I needed a lot of laughs after the last 2 years, and this game gave them to me.
It looks like a kid's game, but I don't know that i would recommend it for young kids, especially in a conservative household.
There will be "adultish" references that you will have to explain, lol.

But if you are open-minded, and just want some silly puzzle-solving fun- get it.

Darkside Detective does everything right; from gameplay to story.
Pros:
- Witty writing
- Natural and fluid game progression
- Perfect for beguinners to the click and point genre
- Beautiful soundtrack
- Interesting artstyle
- Amusing characters
Cons:
- Gameplay length is a tad short, but not bad for the price
- Replay value is limited

Overall I highly recomend this game to those that love the point and click genre as well as those who want to try it out. It is a genuienly funny game which the creators have seemed to put a lot of love and effort into.

Darkside Detective is a point-and-click adventure game developed by Spooky Doorway. You play as Francis McQueen, a Darkside Detective with the Twin Lakes PD. Along with your partner, Dooley, it’s your job to deal with any paranormal issues in the city, be that a haunted library or a full-on zombie apocalypse. The game features six main cases, and a further three bonus cases. A second ‘season’ of the game was recently funded on Kickstarter, due out later this year.

• The chunky pixel art is well done and looks great throughout the game. All of the characters and scenes are well designed.
  
  
• The writing is fantastic, with great humor throughout. The interactions between McQueen and Dooley are particularly enjoyable, and I was regularly chuckling throughout the game. There’s also some great meta-humor which I really enjoyed.
  
  
• The cases are well-varied and compelling. For the most part they stand on their own, so each case is its own experience. I didn’t enjoy the sixth case quite as much as the others, but they’re all good or very good.
  
  
• I found the puzzles/inventory management stuff to be good, this is usually the part of PNC games that I either struggle with or need a guide for, but I was able to get through this game by myself for the most part and I enjoyed this aspect of the game.
  
  
• The music is great.

• Many of the cases require you to do a tedious amount of backtracking, which I found frustrating.

The Darkside Detective will win you over with its great writing and consistent humor. Sure, the backtracking is a bit of a pain, but this game is a joy to play.

If you found this review helpful, please consider following my curator page: Kemo's Corner.

BottomLine at the Top: Meh. 's alright. If your a point and click fan its worth checking out. Don't go breaking the bank to pick it up though.


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Pros
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-Starts right up. No graphic setting configuration nonsense.
-Retro pixel graphic style with modern lighting effects that look gorgeous.
-Funny dialogue. The game is basically a constant stream of one liners that mostly deliver. Dialogue is also not obsessively wordy. It’s almost too sparse but being a comedy it ends up being just the right amount of reading.
-Good music (although can be repetitive at times).
-When you click on the main character, he says things like "ow" and "quit it" which made me giggle.


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Meh.
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-Only autosaves. Would have been nice to have save slots so I could repeat a funny sequence if I wanted to check it out again.
-No walking animations for sprites. This allows you to go between rooms quickly which is a plus. But I felt this game felt very static in between "cutscene" sequences.
-The character design aesthetic mostly works but lack of faces on characters is weird at times.


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Cons
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-I don’t like how right clicking cancels out of all a dialogue sequence instead of just skipping one characters lines one at a time like a standard P&C game. I have a habit of accidently right clicking when I didn’t mean to so on more than one occasion, I skipped a whole bunch of dialogue I didn’t intend to.
-Not too many objects to click on per room.
-Puzzle sequences are ridiculously simplistic. Like why-bother-having-a-puzzle-if-its-this-easy simplistic.
-Getting stuck progress wise in game is often due to not engaging in proper sequence to activate a dialogue path or item interaction option (i.e. scripting progression is predicated on doing the right thing at the right time at its easy to not know what that always is.)


This game is very popular for a what I'd consider a simple style P&C game on Steam. I think its approachable game play and one liner focused humor will appeal to people who don’t consider themselves diehard point and click adventure fans and is probably responsible for its success. At $12 asking price for approximately 5.5 hours of game play I feel it’s only worth it on a decent sale. It’s not a bad P&C game, but I wasn't wowed. I'd still recommend it to the point and click aficionado that is sharp eyed when it comes to finding a good sale.

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A collection of 9 bite-sized point'n'click horror-comedy adventures, or detective cases, delightfully mashed with the influences of Twin Peaks and Twilight Zone, and probably a bunch of other dimension hopping, multiverse spanning references, brought to you by the Spooky Doorway from a parallel universe where they apparently signed a contract with a slightly different, cheekier and wittier version of Rod Serling.

The pixel art is big, chunky and colorful, and since you can't click and move the characters on screen, every screen is a joyous small vignette in the life of paranormal detective Francis McQueen and his trusty sidekick Officer Dooley. The music is beatiful and fits the game perfectly. I absolutely adore the loading screen visuals and music.

The writing is incredibly witty and humorous and you really, really want to click on everything and talk to everyone just to see all the commentary by the characters which are all really memorable and well thought out. I will remember Officer Dooley for a long time. And the amount of culture references to Everything with a capital E probably spans a couple of dimensions on it's own. The game is also self-referential, poking fun at itself while mantaining cohesion with the storyline in each case. And the storylines are connected, with recurring characters and an ending worthy of Season 2, which is now well funded on Kickstarter.

Puzzles are very light, inventory is not cluttered, there's very little items you can actually pick up during each case and the solutions where to use them are pretty obvious, even though the logic can be slightly skewed. It's not a hard point'n'click, but that's not it's point. Each case flows very smoothly, and I rarely got stuck for more than a few minutes.

It's a very charming, almost casual, micro adventure game and it's very obvious great thought and much love and attention was put into creating this. I'm very glad to see it worked and that it's getting a Season 2. Give it a playthrough, it's well worth it for it's paranormally contracted and written humour and story. And Officer Dooley. Never forget Officer Dooley.

Take a peek inside the newly opened Cabinet of Curiosities if you like to walk off the beaten path and only sometimes return to the main roads. You might find something worth exploring. And if you do, thank you for the visit.

Follow the Average Achievement Hunter Curator for reviews and useful information on Steam achievements: 9 story achievements, lots of missables. You can replay the cases and the game counts things from each case, so you only need to find the things you missed in a particular case, if you remember them. And the cases are really short with a walkthrough, so you can easily get all the missing achievements.

This review contains no story spoilers

Darkside Detective (DD) is a point and click and click adventure game that places you in the shoes of Francis McQueen, a detective for the Twin Lakes's police department. He's assigned to the paranormal Darkside division along with his dim but well-meaning partner, Dooley. Together, they have nine cases to solve over the course of the game.

The graphics are as basic as it's possible to get without actually being classified as cave paintings and there's no character animations. The pixel art is only as detailed as it needs to be. The graphics don't affect the gameplay or the overall quality but I can see this as an issue some will get hung up on.

There are no voice overs and barely any incidental sound effects. The background music is atmospheric but not anything special, which is surprising seen as it was composed by Ben Prunty, the same composer of the music from FTL. It's not a distraction from the gameplay and helps set the scenes nicely.

Gameplay is pure point and click. None of the puzzles require any "moon logic" and all are fairly solvable with a bit of thought. The game has no sense of danger either, as there's no stage at which you can die. This didn't ruin the game for me as it's a common mechanic in a lot of adventure games.

Now we're getting to the good stuff. DD is divided up into nine cases. While there is not much of an overarching storyline linking all of them together, some cases do reference other ones so playing them in order is pretty much the only way to go. It's a shame a more solid story wasn't written to join them all up. In fact, the choice to play the cases out of sequence seems pointless when looked back on. Thankfully, the cases themselves are fantastic. Each one is its own little adventure, from hunting down gremlins in the police station because someone was gifted a cursed urn to figuring out why a ghost train has arrived at a station. Each has it's own cast of characters, which is one of the major reasons to play DD.

Put simply, the characters are all wonderfully written. DD has probably one of the best casts of any adventure game not written by Jane Jensen. The main characters McQueen is modelled as a kind of low-rent John Constantine and his partner Dooley who's a hilarious idiot. They really carry the game and they're surrounded by a cast of supporting characters who are a genuine pleasure to interact with. These include: the Bloodwolves (a sort of nihilistic Boy scouts), Santa (working part-time as a chef in a diner) and your ghostly doppelgangers from an alternate dimension. DD is a case study in effective character design. Every single character adds something to the story and experience. This is made even more impressive when you consider that there are 140 of them. What I'm trying to say is that there is a living, breathing world here. As ridiculous a place as it is, Twin Falls really does seem like a real place.

This leads me to the second half of why this game is excellent: the dialogue. I am not being hyperbolic when I say that DD has literally one of the funniest scripts I've encountered in decades. And I mean, truly, laugh out loud-funny. With a proper voice cast, this game could have been something truly incredible. McQueen breaks the fourth wall more times than Deadpool and the sheer number of references to movies or books would take me another two pages just to list. The best part is that none of this gets tiresome. The game is so well-written that all the winks and nods add to the charm of the game rather than catapult you out of the experience like in other games, such as Thimbleweed Park.

DD is that rare breed of game; one that gets better as it goes on. The self-referential humour is razor sharp and a constant source of entertainment. This isn't just a load of Geek Culture 101 memes. This is a game that is hilarious in the way only something that's well-written can be. There's a scene where the rest of the police force are throwing an officer his retirement party three days early because they didn't want to waste the cake if he died the day before retirement. There's a scene where you've constructed a disguise from the most ridiculous items which works because the very act of trying the disguise impresses the target so much that they let you continue due to your initiative.

Of course, there is always a danger with reference-based jokes that your references won't land but unless you were born within the last twenty years and have been living under a rock playing nothing but Fortnite, you should get most of the jokes.

Darkside Detective is a truly stunning piece of writing with some of the best characters you'll ever encounter in a game. The music is decent, and the artwork is only passible but this is a game that plays to its strengths. This is a game that will have you hooked to the end and waiting with baited breath for the sequel. If this game is anything to go by, the sequel is going to be incredible.