The Darkside Detective

Do you like point and click adventure games? Did you grow up during the 80's/90's, or have submerged yourself in that era's wealth of entertainment, be it movies, television, or video games? If the answer to the two above questions is yes, then this game as been made for you. If you answer no to either of them, then you probably want to give it a miss. What Darkside Detective offers is a collection of 12 short scenarios inspired by and loaded with tropes from the 80/90's media frame. The main character is a spoof of X-Files, the case names are satires of movies, and there's references galore packed into every screen from things I imagine a typical adventure game player from that era would recognise. But if you don't know the references, the game unfortunately offers very little. Most of the frustrating elements of Point n Click gameplay has been mitigated in the design. There are no red herring items, and while the moon logic in the puzzles is still plentiful, it's largely mitigated by how your inventory rarely goes past 2-4 items and all of them disappear once used. Each scenario is about 10 or so rooms big, all of which are navigated by clicking on the hotlink that moves between them. There is no walking around, since the main characters are a part of the scenery, and as a result the images are largely zoomed in, avoiding any need for hunting for that obscure pixel hidden in the background. But while this takes away the frustration, it also takes away some of the charm. Much of the gameplay involves entering a room, clicking along the really obvious hotpoints that are basically exclamation marks disguised behind pixel art, then moving on to the next room to rinse and repeat. A few hotspots don't become available until the events have progressed far enough, but they're often telegraphed so that they're sitting in the back of your mind for when you need to use them. The only part that stumped me for more than a minute was a shopping mall whereby the core room layout was a circle of the ground and upper floors connected by escalators on each end, which lured me into a pattern whereby I forgot later on that I'd entered through a foyer in the bottom left corner, otherwise the biggest stumbling block is often remembering to check if the inventory items interact with one another. There are 12 cases in all, each ranging around 20-30minutes a piece. The stories themselves are pretty solid, and the comedy between the main detective and his bumbling Watson sidekick is generally quite good. I'll also give credit to the achievements, which add a layer of difficulty and replayability if you want it, many of which involve exploring to click on more obscure hotspots or ones that are updating based on how the scenario is progressing. If you do these legit and don't jump straight to a guide. it'll likely add a couple of hours additional entertainment to the play count. There's a couple of tile minigames in places to break up the monotony, but none of these are anything to write home about. At the end of the day though, it's hard to give Darkside Detective a ringing endorsement, because what you'll get out of it boils down to your own personal tastes. It was built from nostalgia, and as such, it doesn't try to push the boundaries of what Point and Click adventures can offer in the same way a game like Dreams in the Witch House does. It's design is built around mitigating some of the more frustrating aspects of Point n Clicks, but that comes at a cost of the charm. For me, Point n Clicks were the first real open world game I played, and the coolness factor of walking around interacting with the environment to discover the weird way puzzles were put together is largely mitigated when your character doesn't walk around and a large section of puzzles are solved by picking up the object inside the same room you need to use it in. It's not a game I regret playing by any degree, but I'm also the target audience. But even then, as somebody whose played a fair number of these types of games over almost half a century now, the lack of a larger overarching story and focused gameplay designed to hold my hand through every set of rooms/inventory items did leave me feeling wanting at times.

游戏很好玩，很有脑洞，解密不是很难，轻松上手，内容搞笑有趣。 中翻不是很好，很多搞笑的点没翻出来，还有很多地方乱翻，跟原文意思不一样，建议打开英文看原文。如果英语不好，外置一个实时翻译吧。 建议打折再买，一代的内容有点少，二代会丰富许多，可以等捆绑打折

好好笑的剧情，制作人很有才华很脱线阿。但是各种英文梗很难翻译吧，看出来简中本地化把很多有意思的梗翻译得有些生硬。像素点击解谜有时候很难看到可交互物品，加上这个游戏解谜脑洞蛮大的，经常跟不上思路逻辑。但是剧情人物很出彩。麦奎因杜利早日结婚吧:)

Hideous graphic, horrific dialogues. I recommend 100%

评分6/10 适合在不想动脑只想和全场景物品乱点互动的时候来玩，但在解密上容易令人红温（因为我圣诞节卡关过了几乎快一年了才来接着玩，幸运的是福至心灵很快通关了……）此游解密要旨：点就完事！穷举法赛高！ 因为很吃心口不一冷幽默x直球笨蛋的人设所以玩这个玩得很开心，有6分完全是因为他俩。剧情是单元剧，情节很弱，不过胜在文本幽默且脑洞清奇玩着玩着会突然爆笑(大概是因为比较对我口味)看到老熟人的时候也会觉得开心w 最后，请支持我们双湖城竹马搭档基佬！

Strange cases unfold Ghosts grin behind every clue Mystery winks back

Super fun