Duck Detective Quacks the Case
Samantha Trzinski, Contributing Editor
The dimly-lit office reeked of stale bread and broken dreams. Detective Eugene McQuacklin sat at his desk, hunched over unpaid rent bills, breadcrumbs around his beak. The streetlights cast a faint glow in his office, but a shadow hung over McQuacklin. The divorce weighed heavily on him. He was itching for a case. That’s when the phone rang. McQuacklin, no stranger to the world of deceit, lies, and failed expectations, felt numb when the caller explained the situation. “There are much worse things in this world,” he thought to himself, “than a salami thief.”
So begins Happy Broccoli Games’s 2024 game Duck Detective: The Secret Salami. The player assumes the role of Eugene McQuacklin, the Duck Detective, as he attempts to uncover the Salami Bandit’s identity. McQuacklin’s office is the stereotypical for a disgruntled detective: a small space, littered with papers. Rather than drowning his sorrows in alcohol, though, he drowns them in bread – a guilty pleasure for a duck. This opening scene invites the player into the world of Duck Detective and functions as a tutorial. The player leads McQuacklin through the office, interacts with objects, and practices using the game’s investigative functions that are essential to later gameplay.
The player soon learns that McQuacklin has been hired by an employee at the BearBus call center to find out who stole salami from the lunchroom. McQuacklin, still sobering from his bread binge, cannot remember who hired him to solve the mystery. The first mystery that he must solve, then, is uncovering his employer. The employees at BearBus are less than helpful, though, as none of them will admit who hired him.
The Duck Detective begins searching through the BearBus call center to uncover his employer and to begin gathering information about the Salami Bandit, examining potential clues and interrogating employees. Anyone could be a potential suspect, and it is up to the Duck Detective to figure out this mystery – as soon as he figures out who hired him in the first place.
Once we find the salami, we’ll get the cheese and quackers. Screenshot by the author.
At first, the mystery of the Salami Bandit seems cut and dry, as McQuacklin quickly finds expensive salami hidden in Freddy Frederson’s bag. However, interrogating Frederson reveals that he, too, is unaware of how those salamis appeared in his bag. It seems that Frederson is being framed – but by whom? And for what purpose?
The suspect list is short, and McQuacklin is certain that he can uncover the culprit. Who stole the salami from the breakroom? Was it…
● Freddy Frederson, the awkward and friendless crocodile, obsessed with mysteries?
● Laura Angst, the overworked cat, who is working toward her college degree while chasing after promotions?
● Manfred Ernst, the branch manager and bear with something to hide?
● Sophie Wintheimer, the young giraffe receptionist who just went through a bad break-up?
● Margaret Whitlock, the sheep obsessed with romance novels and baking?
● Rufus Sederis, the penguin janitor who was once employee of the month?
● Or Boris Petrovic, the busy bus-driving buffalo?
As McQuacklin gets closer to the truth about the Salami Bandit, he uncovers a much larger conspiracy at BearBus. This mystery is about so much more than stolen sausage.
The game uses an art style akin to the Paper Mario series, allowing the two-dimensional and almost paper-like cutouts of characters to move around in a three-dimensional space. It is a point-and-click puzzle game in which the player uncovers clues by inspecting objects more closely. Armed with a magnifying glass, the McQuacklin examines papers, artwork, computers, and questions BearBus employees to gather clues. He collects these clues in his notebook, which the player then reviews to piece together events and progress the story. The game also has a built-in hints system in case the player gets stuck. At any point, the Duck Detective can think over a particular question, draw a de-duck-tion, and nudge the player accordingly in the right direction if they are uncertain how to proceed.
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a relatively short game that can be completed in a couple of hours. It presents such a rich and complex story—intermixed with duck-related puns and jokes—that the gameplay flies. This game may be short, but it is no walk in the pond. Suspense builds as the player dives deeper into the mystery at the heart of the game, and takes a darker turn in its final act as one of the employees goes missing. The game balances this suspense with humor. “Facts” about ducks appear on each loading screen and add a sense of ridiculousness and lightheartedness. For instance, the game informs the player that, contrary to popular belief, ducks do not file their taxes.
The emotive voice acting in Duck Detective contributes to its immersion and world-building. Each line of dialogue is narrated by voice actors who have prolific careers. Eugene McQuacklin (Sean Chiplock) captures the character of a disgruntled detective from film noir, down on his luck and deeply nihilistic. Chiplock is a successful voice actor, having appeared in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, Mortal Kombat 11, and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. Laura Angst (Lizzie Freeman) sounds frazzled, overworked, and angry about the workplace culture at BearBus. Freeman, too, is a successful voice actor, having voiced characters in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and Genshin Impact. The loud complaint of “Frederson needs to be fired!” that Angst screams when McQuacklin enters the call center sets the tense scene. Freddy Frederson’s (Brian David Gilbert) nervous and nasally voice reminds the player of a stereotypical 2000s nerdy character, which matches his glasses and Velcro shoes, which McQuacklin asserts are “lame.” Gilbert is known as a writer, musician, YouTube personality, and fact checker/cohost for Dropout’s nerdy quiz show Um Actually. He also contributed voice talent to Adventure Time: Fionna & Cake and Starfield. The other voice actors in Duck Detective (Dashawn Ricks, Annika Maar, Cyrus Nemati, Shane Mullan, and Nola Klop) also bring life to the game through their performances.
Altogether, Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is an inviting point-and-click mystery with straightforward gameplay mechanics. It is a game that creates an immersive story in which the player helps the Duck Detective quack the case that haunts the BearBus call center.
