The Darkside Detective (Switch)

I ain't 'fraid of no ghost!

Look, a pixel retro point and click game ported to the switch filled to the brim with 80's references. It was a fun diversion for a couple of hours to play through the 6 different cases given to you through the game. The framing story is that you are a Detective on the Twin Lake Police department working on the cases involving the Darkside, a parallel universe where people looks more like ghost and such. Togheter with officer Dooly you try to stop all the occultist and nightmarish creatures that invade "Lightside". 

That as much as an overaching story you will get, since there isn't anyone. They make callbacks to the earlier cases, but it's more a commentary on the design of the game. Self-referential humour. So the first case is a teaching case and it's rather good. You been called in on a missing child case and it turns out she created a portal through the Darkside so you follow her, but before you can get her out the nanny knocks out Dooly and prepares her plan to push the child's parents through the portal and usurp the inheritance from the child as the last guardian of the child. You defeat her by tricking her to stay at the Darkside and then wipe out the runes creating the portal. I liked this case. And sadly it doesn't follow up. The next case is just you helping Dooly return a book to the library which have been overrun by ghosts due to a hidden occult library within. The next is a subway station that have switched trains between the Light- and Darkside. The third Dooly going missing while camping with the Bloodwolfes (a scout-like organisation) that turns out he just help a Loch Ness Like monster trying to avoid some reporter and the fourth being in the police station where some gremlins running amok. And they are just absurd situations. The fifth case goes up again as the town is overrun by zombies and it turns out some Darksiders have entered their world to rise a former mob boss from the dead and you gotta stop them. The sixth and final episode are apparently a holiday special since the credits rolled after case 5 and its just you and Dooly visiting the local mall to get some last minute presents and Doolys nephew gets turned into a troll by Krampus that you have to stop and then find the real Santa. The case is called Buy Hard and you end up in a white skirt, without shoes, with a lighter in the air vent. Most fun I had with that case.

A trip through the Darkside

So case 1 and 5 are the best, but the other has some humorous moments and most characters are fun to speak to. Although the self-awareness of being a game and such takes you out of it, but since it's shown right at the start instead of like the last minute (*host*Thimbleweed Park*host*). Felt a bit short and it was rather easy, most trouble was the last case and I got stuck at the puzzle to get some milk. Didn't get any clue that you could use the vaccum on the balcony above the eggnog wagon. And I think I found a glitch since I couldn't move on from the first screen of the vent until I restarted the game. Since the game saves apparently all the time no problem, but it was a bit irritating. Overall a fun experience, but I would like another game with a more overarching plot that ties each case together.