Duck Detective: The Secret Salami to be served up on PC

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Cartoony animal deduction adventure from the creator of Kraken Academy coming early next year

It seems feathered fowl have a nose for mystery, despite not really having noses. First it was Detective Gallo foiling crime, and now it's Eugene McQuacklin, the star of Happy Broccoli Games' upcoming "short and chirpy" animal cartoon deduction adventure, Duck Detective: The Secret Salami.

Like many a noir-styled private investigator, Eugene is a broke, divorced, "down-on-his-luck detective." Quite unlike most fedora- and trenchcoat-wearing PIs, however, this one "also happens to be a duck." He's going to have his work cut out for him in his "latest, greatest" case, a "sinister sausage-based conspiracy" featuring the nefarious Salami Bandit, who's just struck again with another stolen lunch. In order to crack open the case, you'll need to inspect the crime scene, interrogate animals of interest, and then "use the information you’ve gathered (plus your own de-duck-tive reasoning) to locate the suspect."

Duck Detective is a much different game than the developer's previous title, the time-looping Kraken Academy. Presented from an isometric perspective with a delightfully cartoony aesthetic, including cardboard cutout-style characters, this "cozy" casual adventure is inspired by other recent deduction games like The Return of the Obra Dinn and The Case of the Golden Idol. As you uncover new information, you'll pull out your trusty notebook to find key details and potential suspects, but your observations have literal blanks to be filled by choosing from the multiple options available in order to form the correct conclusions. It won't be easy, as "nothing is quite as it seems," but it's not intended to be a long or deep experience, aiming to provide a "charming short-form mystery" filled with "quirky characters, chill gameplay and curious investigation" that should take about 90 minutes to complete.

There is no firm target release date for Duck Detective: The Secret Salami just yet, but it's not far off so you can follow the trail of breadcrumbs to its Steam page, where it will launch early next year for Windows PC.

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