Duck Detective: The Secret Salami

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami delivers on its philosophy too well. It’s an easygoing detective game, sure, but its design feels similarly laid-back. It doesn’t feel like it reaches to excel very often. It doesn’t excite, it doesn’t provoke thought, and it doesn’t linger on the tongue. And there’s something to be said about a game like that. Not everything needs to be a revelation. Sometimes, you just need something that you can file away after you quack the case.

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a great addition to the Happy Broccoli Games roster as well as to the detective mystery game genre. While it does play it safe in its approach, the game brings out the lovable aspects of the genre with its authentic characters and unique investigation. The voice acting and music are engaging and tonally-accurate, while the game doesn’t fall victim to stereotypes and carves itself a place in the sand within the cozy mystery beach. Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a must-play for those who crave a story-rich experience without the dirty work of digging too deep into the issue at hand (or feet?).

With a lot of charm in its cartoonish parody of crime stories, Duck Detective: The Secret Salami makes the pleasant surprise of shaping a seemingly banal premise into a story that has much more than we can see at first glance. The simple mechanics of searching for clues to fill in gaps of deductions are superficial, but require reasoning to reach conclusions and the brevity of this tale prevents its pace from becoming boring and repetitive.

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is the kind of game that keeps you hooked from start to finish and has everything in the right measure: humor, challenge and charisma. It's just a shame that it ends quickly and is not localized into Brazilian Portuguese, but it's still very worthwhile to solve this mystery through the lens of Eugene McQuacklin.

Overall, [Duck Detective: The Secret Salami] is a short game with a runtime of only about three hours, but it’s a fun experience. If you’re a fan of detective-style games like Case of the Golden Idol but want something a little more charming and light-hearted, I’d suggest giving this game a try.

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a send up of the detective noir, and it’s executed almost to perfection. The simple, yet highly effective mechanics do a tremendous job of steering you through the case, which is filled with engaging characters and bolstered by some wonderful voice-acting. The bright and playful visuals are adorable and almost belie the well-written mystery that plays out. Hampered only by its short runtime of 2-3 hours, I dearly hope this is just the first of many sleuthing stories for Eugene McQuacklin. Play it at the risk of being left with a serious hunger for bread… and justice.

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a nice relaxing game you can play for a few hours. The game mechanics won't impress anyone, but it compensates with fantastic dubbing and imaginative humor. The Happy Broccoli Games studio created an intense film noir atmosphere with cute visuals. Solving cases as a duck detective will keep you entertained and make you wish that the game would get a sequel as soon as possible.

Both the jokes and puns as well as most of the puzzles can be enjoyed by people of almost all ages. Duck Detective: The Secret Salami offers a short narrative that doesn’t overstay its welcome and is for the most part very engaging for two to three hours. The English voicecast is fantastic but with the text only being available in English as well it’s unfortunately not accessible all around the world.

The world is so interesting and the gameplay engaging enough that I wanted the game to be longer, which is a rarity these days. I’m hoping that McQuacklin will take more cases in the future and will have the opportunity to enjoy many more bread slices. Play Duck Detective: The Secret Salami in two or three sessions, enjoy the humor, and try to solve the mystery without resorting to hints.

Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a fun little quirky time that can fill a single evening with ear-to-ear smiling joy. Admittedly, having a series of individual cases would've provided it with more longevity; perhaps in a sequel. And what a sequel that would be; this game made me smile more than any game has managed to do this year, and that is worth the price of admission many times over.