The Indie Informer

The world around you dims, everything stained sepia tone. Piping through the air is a light but persistent hum of jazz. A voice rolls over all with serious, self-important observations. That’s right. We’ve entered a perfectly silly detective noir starring everyone’s favorite gumshoe: The Duck Detective. The follow-up to the series’ meaty debut game lands almost a year after the first, and the team has used that time to polish the investigative process.

Uncovering clues is no longer mired by retracing unsure steps as the title now boasts a helpful combination of map, hint, and clue indicator systems. The characters, both returning and brand-new, are just as absurd as the first title. And while the narrative is a little abrupt, the games’ tell-tale humor may have hit even harder in Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping. This short mystery is a notable improvement on an already strong foundation.

Bread is the hero’s weakness. The irresistible substance has backed the clue-gathering fowl into living with a mystery admirer: Freddy Frederson. Fans of the first game will recognize the name as a favorite character, lover of salami and the duck detective. His good-natured goofiness adds an endearing dynamic to the detective’s more dry approach to solving mysteries.

Seeing his pal is in the dumps, Frederson whisks the protagonist off to a reportedly haunted lake where things quickly start to go downhill. The camping trip weaves together supernatural elements and all-too-human (or at least it would be human if the characters weren’t all animals) motives.

Every clue-gathering section works a lot like a very accessible The Golden Idol. Searching around the environment offers words for your notebook that you can drag and drop into place to piece together an incomplete report. The system remains unchanged from the first game, however, its workings have been greatly improved.

Orange indicators float above every searchable object, which will turn green when you’ve exhausted its potential knowledge. The in-menu map — showcasing a much larger area than the first game — also places exclamation points above anything you haven’t fully investigated. Should these two features fail to point you in the right direction, there’s now an entire tab in the menu for hints. You can choose to reveal increasingly clear clues until you get the answer.

Going in, I hoped the game would continue the original’s level of humor. Happily, it not only hit that goal, but went beyond it. The small, background gags, like knocking over every trash can, are expanded. Almost every new exploration level is introduced by an over-the-top monologue whose gravity is far too intense for its subject. The interesting factoids at the bottom of the loading screen are also chuckle-inducing — like, the fact that ducks are bread-green color blind.

The story framework has also been shored up, though its substance isn’t much improved. After piecing together major story beats, the duck detective will stare determinedly into the distance while dramatically going over his conclusions. He does this apparently in his head, as his trusty sidekick Fredeson even comments on him going weirdly quiet on occasion. Like the first game, this entry touches on political intrigue and secret desires, even if some of them don’t seem to be very plausible.

Pleasingly, Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping‘s ending again grants the player the power to decide the suspect’s ultimate fate. So, I look forward to hearing which choices everyone makes. Less expected was a post-credits scene, which I won’t spoil, but has me prepared for another entry in the series. With this latest game making much-appreciated improvements and with some elements still up for a little polish, I look forward to another seriously silly adventure.