The Darkside Detective A Fumble in the Dark

The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark is the second entry in Spooky Doorway's pixel-art paranormal point-and-click series, set once again in Twin Lakes — America's 34th most haunted city. The premise is familiar to anyone who played the first game: when something cursed happens in Twin Lakes, Detective Francis McQueen and his usually-present (in body, if not mind) sidekick Officer Dooley are dispatched to handle it. Twin Lakes is roughly mid-spectrum cursed — bad enough to be a nuisance, not bad enough that anyone treats it as an emergency.

The sequel picks up after the events of the first game, with McQueen needing to extract Dooley from the Darkside before the duo can get back to their actual case load. Nine standalone investigations make up the campaign, each a self-contained chapter with its own setting and supporting cast. The cases take the detectives to a carnival, the local retirement home, an amateur wrestling circuit, and even all the way out to Ireland, with the small-town paranormal tone consistent across the whole spread.

The writing is the game's signature asset. Spooky Doorway's particular brand of dry, character-driven humour carries the puzzles even when the puzzles themselves are conventional point-and-click chains, and the rapport between McQueen and Dooley does most of the comedic work in the background as you investigate increasingly weird situations. The pixel art is restrained and consistent, the puzzles fair without being trivial, and the chapter-based structure makes the game ideal for shorter sessions across multiple sittings.