My name is Eugene McQuacklin. I’m a detective. A duck detective. And I promise, I have no problem with the delicious temptations of cheap, flat bread… not even a crumb. Work is going well, but it seems there’s a need for a keen-eyed waterfowl for I got myself a new and sudden employment to figure out the mystery of stolen lunch! No more serious matter could ever emerge. I’m on the case. Using my de-duck-tions I will sniff out any fowl play and quack the case.
Those are the broad strokes of the new game by developers in Happy Broccoli - a casual, short story with a detective bend. Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is not a serious title nor a grim noir adventure with dark conspiracies or grim crimes at the forefront. It’s a whimsical, goofy little romp, where the case is rudimentary and trivial and the characters are a little zany. That’s all well, though, for it is exactly the idea - it wants to be comedic and does it well. It aims to be lighthearted, but it still manages to deliver a few little twists on the edges. It delivers on its promises, filled with wordplays, little gags, and lots of charm.
It helps, a huge lot, that the game looks and sounds fantastic. The art is basic, but executed well, in the style of Paper Mario, with lots of expressiveness and strong identity. The shining star is the voice acting - it’s impeccable. And very enjoyable. Each and every character has a unique voice that empowers their traits, their persona. They are all fun, and energetic and squeeze the most out of their roles. From an obsessive alligator to a strangely morbid grandma sheep, they are all fun to engage and a pleasure to listen to. Also, you can quack. Amazing stuff.
The gameplay loop is very straightforward. Collect clues, which you can’t miss out on since the map places an indicator on every character and location you can still interact with to squeeze out some new information. There’s a fun little bit when you use your magnifying glass to look at every suspect as close as possible! This was a lovely little bit, but to my middling disappointment, it’s well exhausted as a thing to do rather early on the adventure. The key and the essence of the gameplay lies in de-duck-tions.
Once you investigate everything you’re given a collection of words you need to put together, mad-libs style, until they form The Truth. It’s at the same time the best and weakest part of the game. On one hand, I was surprised that some of the later deductions required a bit more keen observational skills and the ability to review previously obtained clues to squeeze out the correct information. But on the other hand, once you have enough or even all words unlocked, you can brute force your way through the case, thanks to a generous hint system. And if you do so, your fun factor of figuring things out might be well diminished.
I was a little disappointed with the length of the story - even if it was advertised as such! It feels like the systems have potential if they were given more to work with. More characters. More complex case. Ability to stretch your mental muscle to squeeze pertinent truths from a multitude of clues and data. I must give credit when it’s due - early in the story I smugly believed that ai figured it all out way ahead of the story. I was glad to be proven wrong, however, and that the story still managed to throw me off the real culprit, even if for a bit.
In short, I could play another game like that, with delight. Sure, it was a short little romp, without any brain-scratching moments and with a case soft and squishy like the story characters. But there’s potential in the systems, there’s fun in goofy stories and pleasure in interacting with such colorful characters.Â
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