Let’s stop chasing shadows, McQueen and investigate why this Darkside Detective: Backside of the Moon preview wasn’t any longer. Aargh! This is such a great series and so invested in McQueen and Dooley that I forgot that the build looked at here was merely a sneak peek. After 20 minutes or so, it was all over, and the remaining cases were locked. Rats in a bath!
I’m grateful, mind. I now have another title to look forward to when it’s released. In the meantime, what’s it all about? It’s tricky to get into things without any spoilers, but to cut to the chase, we have a parody of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids! (ask your folks), and our hapless heroes have to return to their regular size and are unable to use the reverse shrink gun in McQueen’s drawer.
If you haven’t experienced the series before, I highly recommend it. If you click a link and reading more words is going to sidetrack you, Darkside Detective: Backside of the Moon is a point and click adventure with modified mechanics. For starters, the protagonists do not move around a scene. Sure, you can switch back and forth between scenes, and there are animations, of course, but you don’t click areas to move to. Instead, you interact with objects as in any other title from the genre.
McQueen is a paranormal detective and accompanied by a loveable, but bumbling police officer numpty named Dooley. I would say that the pixel art is the star of the show (it’s very lovely, really), but it’s their relationship and exchanges that make this a standout. Essentially a geek’s best friend for pop culture references, the two will frequently smash down the fourth wall, lace conversations with in-jokes and subtleties, and while this is going on, you’ll be chuckling to yourself or your influencer audience, irrespective of views. It’s really that funny.
Darkside Detective: Backside of the Moon has always been chapter-based, with separately self-contained stories as cases that the two are investigating. In this preview, there was only the one on offer, and here is a spoiler: it doesn’t conclude – which is a good thing, and witnessing a lineup of dossiers on the screen to insinuate there are more chapters incoming, I genuinely can’t wait.
I’m not going to fill your time or my web real estate with any more gumpf. Simply add it to your wishlist and in the meantime, go check out the first games if you’re a point and click fan, have a sense of humour, don’t like your protagonists to have a face, or all of the above. Ask for it by name.
