The Darkside Detective Review

When we published an article about The Darkside Detective last month, we’ve said that it is a bizarre and supernatural point & click adventure. Here, I must correct myself. It is a brilliant, hilarious, bizarre and supernatural point & click adventure.

The Darkside Detective is a classic point and click adventure game with a distinct sense of humour and when I say humour, I mean that you will not only exhale and make a ‘pft’ noise while playing it. The Darkside Detective will actually make you laugh with bizarre characters, cases and most importantly, dialogues.

Smells like Twin Peaks!

Before anything else, I must admit that I was drawn to The Darkside Detective because it reminded me of Twin Peaks, the marvellous TV series by David Lynch which made a comeback recently. Twin Peaks, also, has a distinct sense of humour when it comes to Agent Cooper and it features the same retro feeling. The main protagonist of The Darkside Detective, Francis McQueen, looks like nothing but Agent Cooper and believe me, he has his sense of humour.

The game is set in Twin Lakes (no, not Twin Peaks) and our Agent McQueen is the lead investigator of the criminally underfunded Darkside Division. The game offers six weird cases which Agent McQueen must solve. Every case, turns into some kind of dark and extraordinary case while McQueen investigates them.

The game usually makes references to cult movies, books and TV series in a hilarious way. For example; two of the cases named as Malice in Wonderland and Don of the Dead. While investigating the case, you will have the side character Dooly helping you, or most likely not helping you all the time. He is also a little weird, you see.

Through our journeys, we will come across some of the most unforgettable characters of all times like Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Loch Ness and Gremlins. Who doesn’t like Gremlins! Those bastards are hard to catch, I tell you. You need to interact with people and objects around you in order to solve the cases and you will have to make the most weird conversations of your life while doing so.

Should I paint this woman and hang this plunger on the wall?

Collecting items and combining these items are essential parts of the game if you want to solve the case. Collecting items is rather easy than using them, since it is the real challenge of the game. You may use these items in the most weird ways to solve the case.

The Darkside Detective requires wandering around a lot, especially when you can’t figure out where to use the item. You may find this part a little bit tiring and repetitive, but this means you need to check every corner carefully before leaving the area.

While playing The Darkside Detective, you will be amazed by the soundtracks. Ben Prunty, the audiomancer behind gems such as FTL and Gravity Ghost is offering you a bliss for your ears. The soundtrack always bilevels with the gameplay, getting more and more mysterious and enjoyable with every case.

When it comes to the pleasure for our eyes, I must say that The Darkside Detective looks gorgeous for a pixelated game. The warm colours are welcoming and everything is detailed as far as it can be in a pixelated game.

Honestly, I didn’t encounter any bugs or crashes while playing The Darkside Detective. I was a little bit heart-broken when I first saw the menu, yet it was a relief when I realized that we actually don’t need an advanced menu to experience a proper gameplay. The only difficulty you will encounter while playing the game is, as I’ve mentioned before, is using the items in the right place. It is a supernatural game, so you must think different from what you usually think while solving a case. The item which looks the most inappropriate may be what you need, so never leave the scene before giving it a go. I can’t say that it is easy to solve the case even if you figure out the ending, you must use the right item in the right place.

The controls are simple and easy enough to use, like it must be when it comes to a point & click game. The animations are flawless and verify the description made by the developers; cutting edge, high definition pixels.

The Darkside Detective is now available on Steam. If you want to waste your time and money on something, waste them on The Darkside Detective since it is a splendid experience which deserves every compliment which can be made.