The Darkside Detective on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information

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Grab your trench coat, tune your sixth sense and join the Darkside Division as they investigate the outright bizarre, the downright dangerous and the confusing cases of Twin Lakes. Flesh-hungry tentacles, mafian zombies, and the occasional missing sock are no match for The Darkside Detective.

The Darkside Detective is a point & click, detective and pixel graphics game developed by Spooky Doorway and published by Akupara Games.
Released on July 27th 2017 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux in 5 languages: English, French, German, Spanish - Spain and Simplified Chinese.

It has received 4,724 reviews of which 4,464 were positive and 260 were negative resulting in an impressive rating of 9.1 out of 10. 😍

The game is currently priced at 14.79€ on Steam, but you can find it for less on Gamivo.

The Steam community has classified The Darkside Detective into these genres:

Point & Click Detective Pixel Graphics Adventure Story Rich Mystery Comedy Funny Singleplayer Indie Supernatural Retro Puzzle 2D Casual Dark Humor Lovecraftian Cartoony 1980s 1990's

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at The Darkside Detective through various videos and screenshots.

System requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows

OS: Windows 10
Processor: 3rd Gen i3/AMD FX-4100 Series
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel HD (Integrated), GeForce 6 Series/Radeon R7 Series
Storage: 1 GB available space

MacOS

OS: Mac OS X 10.7+
Processor: Intel® Core™ Duo 1.83GHz
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel HD Chipset 3000
Storage: 1 GB available space

Linux

OS: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Processor: Pentium 4
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel HD Chipset 3000
Storage: 1 GB available space

User reviews & Ratings

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Dec. 2025

You play as Francis McQueen, detective in the Darkside Division of the Twin Lakes Police Department, and you and your partner Dooley are tasked into solving various paranormal happenings around town. The game is a simple point-and-click style game where you go from screen to screen, collecting items, combining those items, and using them on obstacles in your investigation. In true point-and-click style, solutions require a bit of moon logic, but Darkside Detective does a good job at least having some sort of reasoning behind the combinations. You aren't combining custard pies to yetis to defeat them or anything like that. Speaking of which, the game is full of pop culture references and self referential humor. Almost everything you click on that isn't moving the plot along will have some dialogue from Dooley or McQueen referencing something, be some sort of pun, or be a meta joke. These references range from decent to certified groaners. Again, par for the course for a point-and-click game. The game was released in 2017, so keep in mind what was popular during that point in time. Honestly, I'm a sucker for the pixel style and the paranormal mystery aspect, and this game scratches that itch for me. There are 9 cases in total to solve, and you can probably make your way through the game in about 3-4 hours. If that seems good to you, this game might be for you.

Dec. 2025

If you like games like Frog Detective, Sam and Max, and Ben There Dan That, then you'll love this silly point and click about a detective and his cop partner solving occulty crimes. Each chapter is about 30 mins max and not too difficult. I actually found the 3 bonus levels to be harder than the main game, especially the Christmas one for whatever reason. There are a bunch of references to all of your favorite horror, sci fi, and fantasy media.

Nov. 2025

I finished "The Darkside Detective" in a little under 5 hours! This was a very funny game, I really liked sidekick Dooley's replies to everything. It was a different kind of game, in that it wasn't one long story but several different cases. First I finished the six regular cases, then I already got the credits scene, and then I played the three bonus cases, not actual police case but strange situations our heroes find themselves in by accident during leisure activities. The puzzles were right up my alley, mostly inventory puzzles but sometimes a logic puzzle thrown in. I solved the first case in less than twenty minutes, but the final bonus case took me a long time, it was the hardest in the bunch. The graphics are very basic as you can see, very pixellated, I thought I wouldn't like the fact you can't see the character's faces, but it didn't really bother me. I just considered it a game like in the early Sierra days, it reminded me a bit of the original Larry, or Goldrush. I really enjoyed the occult nature of this game, and they wrote some good music to accompany the cases. Will definitely play the sequel!

Aug. 2025

Nice indie game, it inspired my Darkside Detective short story collection.

June 2025

I've played this game through a few times now, I just love the style of it. The stories have a great, quirky sense of humour that makes it fun to just walk around and click everything just to hear the reactions. Also, I would die for Dooley, 10/10 character.

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Frequently Asked Questions

The Darkside Detective is currently priced at 14.79€ on Steam.

The Darkside Detective is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 14.79€ on Steam.

The Darkside Detective received 4,464 positive votes out of a total of 4,724 achieving an impressive rating of 9.10.

😍

The Darkside Detective was developed by Spooky Doorway and published by Akupara Games.

The Darkside Detective is playable and fully supported on Windows.

The Darkside Detective is playable and fully supported on MacOS.

The Darkside Detective is playable and fully supported on Linux.

The Darkside Detective is a single-player game.

There is a DLC available for The Darkside Detective. Explore additional content available for The Darkside Detective on Steam.

The Darkside Detective does not support mods via Steam Workshop.

The Darkside Detective does not support Steam Remote Play.

The Darkside Detective is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.

You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for The Darkside Detective.

Data sources

The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.

Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.

Last Updates

Steam data	29 January 2026 00:31
SteamSpy data	28 January 2026 08:54
Steam price	28 January 2026 20:50
Steam reviews	28 January 2026 11:46

If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about The Darkside Detective, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.

SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about The Darkside Detective
SteamCharts - Analysis of The Darkside Detective concurrent players on Steam
ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck The Darkside Detective compatibility