The mysterious world behind the life of a detective, especially one focused in the paranormal events, is always a intriguing aspect for a story. While there are many ways to go about discovering the secrets behind strange events going on around town, The Darkside Detective is a point-and-click adventure from Spooky Doorway on Steam is one that had me entertained through each case!

Story

In The Darkside Detective you play as Dt. McQueen and your only partner in the darkside division is Ofc. Dooley. The comical banter between the two main characters, including many of the other characters in the story, will keep you entertained as you try to figure out how to stop the paranormal events from continuing.

You are the only two in this division and it is up to you, even if you never get proper credit, to make sure the "brightside" and the darkside stay in their own deminsions.

Gameplay

The game features a total of six cases, the first one being released awhile back as a featured demo for the game. Each case has their own location, situation, and can range from a comical event caused by stupidity to a serious event created by a devious person!

You had to figure out how to solve each case by completing tasks in a specific order and collecting materials as you pass through each scene. While you don't actually walk around the room, everything in each scene is interact-able, at least for a statement or joke regarding it.

It's a full map puzzle game with little mini-puzzles that occasionally sprout up. It does require some thought process from you as well, so be prepared to put on the brown coat and get that thinking cap to work yourself as well!

Here's the Release Trailer:

Graphics

Using very low poly pixels to present the area, everything is obvious to what it is meant to be, but low grade enough that faces aren't even necessary on the characters. Everybody is easily distinguishable through clothing, posture, and attitude, which is essentially what you need to successfully solve the cases. They also have different colors, such as blue for ghost and green for darkside ghost, that help differentiate the different ghosts you encounter.

Sound

The music is very setting for each location, whether it be soft music for the library or daunting music for the graveyard, each area has under-powering music. I enjoyed having the soft track in the back so that it wasn't pure silence, but also not distracting while I am trying to solve a case!

Replayability

Other than trying to speed run through the cases, once a case is solved it will be the same next round through. Not a lot of reasons to go back through the game besides looking for more of that comical banter and solving cases faster.

What Could Be Better

The mini-puzzles were good little interruptions, which I know was the point of them, but I would of enjoyed having really tough puzzles that got harder the further along the game went. Instead it seemed like it go easier, and not because of repetitive use, but just different puzzle mechanics for each one.