Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping – A Review

Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping, despite its name being anything but, commits to its bit of playing it straight. A duck that is a hard-boiled, self-narrating detective is a premise that could easily go awry, but it manages to entertain thoroughly throughout. In fact, this latest outing of Duck Detective succeeds heavily on the back of its characters and voice acting, making each interaction with the quirky cast of campers that have fallen under suspicion as the mystery continues to deepen. This is a testament to the writing that Happy Broccoli Games brings to the experience.

At the start of the story, Duck Detective is a mess, losing around his dirty room trying to solve the mystery of why his love life went to shambles. This is when his roommate Freddy Fredderson, his crocodile roommate, convinces him to come on a trip to a haunted campground in the foothills of an abandoned insane asylum, where they will be glamping for two days and nights. A key component of this is to introduce Duck Detective to his new mystery girlfriend. For players new to the series, you get your first taste of just how hard-boiled our feathered investigator is, since these things don’t need to be mysteries, but he refuses any knowledge he hasn’t worked out on his own, playing into the quirky juxtaposition of his Sam Spade archetype.

Gameplay takes the form of players controlling a cardboard cutout-type representation of the character as he moves around the small environments that have interesting use of 3D effects, like a beach ball that can be kicked or a hammock that spins when you approach. The campground, which takes up the brunt of the experience, might be small, but it’s full of interactions to be had as you progress.

The core of investigations revolves around trying to solve a Mad Libs-style page in which the duck detective fills in the blacks about people involved in the current case he is working on, though they all bleed into each other, as well as the facts of the case such as if blackmail was involved, or threates. The player wanders the campgrounds, interacting with objects to try and get keywords that can be used to fill in this page. On top of that, talking to the eclectic cast of characters can also uncover information. There is also a fun mini game in which you look over the cast of cute anthropomorphic animals to find clues about them, with their more animalistic features like sharp tusks or rough fur becoming visible as you look. This became a highlight of the experience for me.

These cases were relatively easy, only getting confused on one puzzle because I had two of the characters reversed in their positioning, since I had read them incorrectly. The good thing is, even if you are not the best puzzly solver, the game gives you easy access to hints and no punishment for using them if you need to. A few puzzles are easily solved just from knowing the keywords, but there were others that required more searching, which helped to give more depth. There are a few moments that deviate from the formula, such as figuring out a lock code to search for clues, but this word association proved to be the most of the experience. I was enjoyable, so it’s hard to fault it, but something more to break up this repetition would have been welcomed.

The game’s biggest issue is that the story is short, which usually only becomes an issue when the story actually engages me. My playthrough only took around 3 hours, and I suspect I was taking my time (I got sidetracked kicking a beach ball around for longer than I thought possible). Furthermore, I achieved the platinum trophy in the process of the main narrative meaning that, there is some replayability to the game if you want to enjoy it again, but with very little branching narrative and puzzles that don’t change, if your like me, you might have a hard time going back without the added motivation. All this being said, the game is only $10 dollars, making it hard to hold its length against it.

In conjunction with this, there were a few plot points I felt were never resolved, or just not addressed past this. The first case involving the Duck Detectives’ girlfriend offered some interesting backstory that was never mentioned after. It doesn’t establish itself as the heart of the narrative, but also feels more important than a plot threat that should evaporate into thin air. Without getting into spoiler territory for the main experience, there are a few points that feel painfully like red herrings in their existence rather than additional mysteries that Duck Detective becomes embroiled in. All this being said, I have a feeling this isn’t the last we have seen of the detective, so there is always room to solve for things to be neatened up in the future.

Verdict

Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping is, at its heart and soul, a charming and cute experience. I loved every minute with it, even if those minutes were fleeting. That is the biggest crime here because this is a world I want to get more invested in with its great cast of characters, and over-the-top titular detective. There are so many stories to be told here, and if this one is anything to go by, they are worth telling. I would have liked a few more elements to break up the main investigations, which all play out with the same formula, though this feels moot once you get your rhythm going. For mystery fans old and young, Duck Detective is worth the ride along.

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