The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark is the second in a humorous point-and-click pixel art detective game series about solving supernatural mysteries. Go along with best friends Detective McQueen and Officer Dooley, explore various locations in the city, and solve cases about all the weird stuff going on.

Official Description:

Delouse your room with sage and pack up your travel-sized ouija board, it’s time to re-enter Twin Lakes – America’s 34th most haunted city. Join Detective McQueen as he puzzles his way through 6 chilling cases, risking life and pixelated limb to solve the macabre mysteries that plague the poor town.

More Info:

You can get more info and download the game on Steam, itch.io, or the official website!

Long Review:

This is going to be less of a review and more just me rambling about my feels and specific things I loved. If you’ve already played and loved the first game, all you need to know is that this is just as great, with more of the same gameplay and humor and friendship, and you should play it! If you’re still not convinced, you should know that you also get to see McQueen’s butt (which, let’s be honest, you’re probably a little disappointed that it’s not Dooley’s, but McQueen’s no slouch). 😉 And if you didn’t play the first game yet, you can read my review for that one.

There is one potential technical problem, which is my only negative. There seems to be an issue with save data getting deleted. It happened to me multiple times, and I found some other people mention it online too. If it does happen to you, the best workaround I could figure out was to play each case in one sitting and use this trick to unlock all the cases. That way, you can at least move on to the next case even if your previous cases don’t stay marked as “solved.”

Now, moving on to my thoughts about the game and story. Warning, there are some *SPOILERS* ahead that might ruin some jokes or emotional impact if you haven’t played this sequel yet.

That intro hit me right in the feels! I figured, when Dooley got transported to the Darkside at the end of the first game, it was just a joke and wouldn’t get mentioned again, or he’d get back right away, or something like that. Turns out he was there for a year! And McQueen was looking for him for that whole year! McQueen was so worried about his best friend and determined to find him! And then in the flashbacks and stuff, Dooley missed his best friend and his family and made little fake versions of them in the sewers to talk to, which was so sad. And he ended up becoming basically the pet of an abusive, toxic monster creature. That McQueen/Dooley hug when he finally got him back was so immensely satisfying; I was going to explode if they didn’t hug already. There was one part when Dooley brought up McQueen’s cat, Placeholder Dooley, and he was like, “You missed me! You missed me!” to taunt McQueen; in my head, I was like, “Of course he missed you, and I don’t think he’s ashamed to admit that,” and the next line was McQueen being like, “Dooley, I spent a year searching for you. Of course I missed you.” Also, they apparently go on double dates and trips to the zoo and have movie nights, a whole friendship outside of what we even get to see. Their friendship is so adorable. I really do love it.

Also, I really hope it is in fact canon that Dooley has a side gig as a stripper.

That gauntlet on that show run by the clown in the Darkside was actually horrifying! Not scary to play, it was still just point-and-click, no rush or anything. But imagining actually being there and doing that, that would be so horrifying!

Speaking of no rush, there was one part where something was counting down, and with each screen change as I was moving about, it would go down by one, so I worried maybe you had to make the exact right location clicks, or something would happen. But then I got to the place I needed to go, the countdown was at “one,” and it turned out I still needed a piece from somewhere else, so I went and got it, went back to the countdown location, and the game was like, “Launch still in one second, inexplicably.” 😂

*END SPOILERS*

There are even some extra jokes if you check out the game settings/options.

The launcher I used says I played for 9 hours, though probably half an hour to an hour was spent replaying and trying to fix the save issues.

Anyway, another fun game!

*Source/Cost: I played this on Utomik with a monthly subscription.*

Short Review:

– Point-and-click mystery solving and mini games that are fun and not too hard
– Lots of humor
– An adorable friendship
– Cute pixel art
– Overall cute and fun, and this one hit me in the feels more than the first!

Accessibility:

(May not include everything)
– Not accessible for blind / visually impaired players and screen reader users.