Duck Detective: The Secret Salami

If you're looking for a charming, witty, and genuinely engaging mystery game, Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is an absolute must-play. This delightful surprise perfectly blends humor with clever deduc(k)tion puzzles, putting you in the webbed feet of Eugene McQuacklin, a down-on-his-luck duck detective. The fantastic paper-cutout art style and top-notch voice acting bring each eccentric character to life, making the simple premise of a stolen salami unravel into something much more intricate and hilarious. The core gameplay of gathering clues and using "de-duck-tive" reasoning is incredibly satisfying, striking a great balance that makes you feel like a truly clever detective when everything clicks into place. While it's a relatively short experience, clocking in at around 2-3 hours, this brevity is part of its appeal. There's no filler, just a tightly packed, well-written narrative that keeps you entertained from start to finish. Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a refreshing, ...

Originally, I planned to play this with the whole family—my wife and daughter—quacking a case together. Sounds fun, right? But soon my wife couldn’t get into the case, and my daughter was mostly focused on picking out the cutest animals. So they gave up after about two hours. (just to be clear, that’s not ageism or sexism—just an honest observation) Honestly, that’s not such a bad thing. I could slow down and quietly gather clues and finish the game on my own, which turned out to be just very enjoyable.

It's times like this I wish there was a "meh" option. I really want to like this game. It's cute, funny at times. But somehow it simultaneously feels as though you're being handheld through the game, and that you're not being given enough information to solve anything, to the point where what the game seems to be telling you is the obvious answer is actually incorrect. It wouldn't have been so bad if they were just red herrings but the story isn't set up that way. For example, when identifying the Salami Bandit, the answer the game wants is that it's [spoiler]Manfred[/spoiler] because his [spoiler]handwriting is identical[/spoiler], but two other characters [spoiler]have more similar handwriting to the Bandit, including one that you know at that point is engaged in blackmail and fraud[/spoiler]. The answer the game wants you to give is contradictory to the reason it wants you to give it. Slightly less confusing deducktions, or deducktions that are confusing for the right reasons, and t...

had an ok time with this one, wouldn't recommend in comparison to other games of its kind but I didn't have an awful time, I just think that the logic of the solutions just wasn't fully there and it could have been a lot clearer (Sophie tied up in the bus what??). Having subjective words like "silly" in solutions felt wrong too, even if it is multiple choice I thought that was subjective. + some enjoyable comedic elements!

I quacked the case, and I can eat more bread. They don't call me The Duck Detective for no reason ;)

I'd probably leave a positive review if the overall rating was "somewhat positive" or lower. It wasn't bad. The art is pretty good, the characters are pretty good, the puzzles are okay, the office politics are pretty good. I don't know why the game description likens itself to Obra Dinn. The central puzzle mechanic is incredibly similar to Golden Idol. You go around and collect keywords, use them to complete sentences. Solid system. That said, I had a friend over yesterday. I showed him a few games I'd been playing, and this wasn't one of them. I also have no interest in playing the sequel. If that isn't "I don't recommend this game," the what is? As others have said, the base price is a bit high for the game length. I played two games of similar length this week, one was five USD and one was free. I enjoyed both of them more. Neither of them had a full roster of voice actors, so I understand the why this would have a higher budget than a solo endeavor or a college thesis. That said, ...

Great bite-sized detective game with fun puzzles and good world building. Definitely interested in further games in this charming series.

Cute, but short and not that difficult--I'd recommend it on sale!

A [mediocre] silly, cute, and short detective game. Definitely leaning more towards a kid audience. Not a bad game, but not a great one either. Personally, it had a bit too much hand-holding and no opportunity to make mistakes.

This a cute and charming game with some little problems, namely the gameplay. In this game you put certain words into blanks to make statements about the case. This was a system I ultimately didn't enjoy as I would fill them out to what I thought made sense, but it didn't count because it wasn't THE statement I was supposed to find, resulting in a guessing game. I also found that the game would sometimes just not give the player enough clues to reasonably find an answer to a question. I wish I could put mixed, cause the writing I found to be good. But as it's stands I can't say confidently that I recommend this game.