Staff Picks: Solving a crime with a "ducktective" and spinning Jack White's No Name
We're enjoying the latest in the small but growing sub-sub-genre of bird-themed detective games and a throwback rock album
Jacob Oller, Jen Lennon
This week’s recommendations once again come from very different ends of the entertainment spectrum, as Features Editor Jen Lennon embarks on a cozy mystery game and Film Editor Jacob Oller praises the new solo album from Jack White.
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami
It’s raining outside the BearBus office as private investigator Eugene McQuacklin surveys the building. There’s a flyer advertising a new bus route to the mountains of Salsiccia. McQuacklin once dreamed of taking his wife there, but that flight of fancy is long gone now, lost somewhere in the haze of addiction and past-due rent notices and divorce papers. Now, he needs to solve the case that’s waiting for him on the other side of those run-down double doors. It’s not some misguided quest for redemption; he just doesn’t have enough money to get back home. Unless he wants to hoof it all the way across town when this is all over, he’s gotta earn enough cash to catch a bus back to his office-slash-apartment so he can indulge again. It’d be pretty beak—er, bleak—if McQuacklin wasn’t a duck addicted to white bread. As it stands, Happy Broccoli Games’ Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is a loving homage to noir tropes that nails the balance between comedy and mystery, a funny game that takes the genre seriously.
Released back in May, Duck Detective is the latest addition to the small but growing sub-sub-genre of bird-themed detective games (other examples include the excellent Aviary Attorney and Chicken Police, which has a sequel coming out later this year). You play as McQuacklin, a down-on-his-luck duck called in to investigate a case of theft—lunch theft. A sandwich has been snatched by someone leaving taunting messages signed “The Salami Bandit.” After you get acquainted with everyone who works at the office, your first task is to figure out who your client is. The initial phone call was rushed and lacked detail, but you were desperate. “Looking for a job. Will do almost anything,” you posted on Bluesky, and then you found yourself wading through puddles and office politics in equal measure.
Of course, there’s more here than meets the eye. The game is short, at roughly 2-3 hours per playthrough, but it packs in several twists as you unravel the central mystery. To figure out the identity of the salami bandit, you must investigate the office, interview suspects, and fill out deducktions (not a typo) in your notebook (think The Case Of The Golden Idol, but less overtly weird, somehow, even though this world is populated by anthropomorphic animals). The gameplay and puzzle-solving aren’t particularly difficult, but that’s not really the point: it’s simply delightful to play this game. Even if you’re not into video games but love mysteries, you might want to give this a shot—it’s available for PC, Mac, and Linux, in addition to Nintendo Switch and Xbox, and the controls are about as simple as you’ll find in a game outside of a visual novel. It’s also fully voice-acted, which we always have to give props for. Duck Detective: The Secret Salami might sound goofy, but it’s clear that the team at Happy Broccoli takes their ducktective work seriously. [Jen Lennon]