“What this really is, is a sitcom. One of my favorites of all time, I think”
THE DARKSIDE DETECTIVE does the hard work for you
Have you ever played a game that felt like it was made just for you? I don’t mean one that you enjoyed a lot, or that zoned in on a specific interest of yours. I mean a game that seems to have been designed only after the developers conducted a disturbingly invasive investigation of your life. I ask because, yes, that’s how this feels to me.
Here’s the thing: I try very hard to enjoy videogames, but videogames fight me on this with surprising regularity. My main obstacle is time, of which I have very little. With a full-time job, a family and then a part-time job playing and writing about games, the moments I have that are truly my own can be in short supply. I’m drawn to series such as Persona and Assassin’s Creed that demand a huge time investment, because apparently I hate myself.
The Darkside Detective respects both my time, and my life. It’s split into six ‘cases’ (plus three bonus ones), each of which can be finished within about 30 minutes. I started playing it a few months ago, but haven’t quite managed to finish it yet due to various life things (and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla) interrupting. And this poses no problems at all. It’s glorious.
Each case is a self-contained story that doesn’t require you to remember intricate details from the rest of the game (although there are a few jokes that link cases). Incidentally, I started playing Telltale’s Game of Thrones back in 2015, and I’m still not done with it. Each time I go back, I struggle to remember why everybody’s so bloody miserable.
I’ll soon have this one finished, though. In fact, I’m (partly) dragging it out on purpose precisely because it’s fairly short, and I don’t want it to end. This is theoretically a point-andclick game—you point at things, and then you click on them—but that’s just a disguise. What this really is, is a sitcom. One of my favorites of all time, I think. None of the puzzles pose much of a challenge; they’re just there to maintain the facade. It’s an interactive paranormal comedy, sort of like a cross between Unavowed, The X-Files, and the brilliant Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace.
EPISODIC FUN
The Darkside Detective isn’t split into cases; not really. These are episodes, and at two-thirds through, I love every one so far. There are plenty of games that try to be funny, but most fail, or at the least fail to be consistent. But this? This makes me smile, and even laugh out loud, more often than many comedy TV shows and movies that I’ve seen. I love it so much. When I discovered that I’d missed the opportunity to back the Kickstarter for a sequel, I was genuinely upset. The good news of course is that it was fully funded, and the next game ( A Fumble in the Dark) is coming this year. And I cannot wait to play it, one episode at a time.
I’M (PARTLY) DRAGGING IT OUT ON PURPOSE PRECISELY BECAUSE IT’S FAIRLY SHORT