Dungeon Detective 2: Devils and Details

What can I say? I loved Dungeon Detective 1, and this is like the bigger, stronger cousin of that game. It's a clue-gathering mystery, D&D-esque setting, sweet interface, a day-night cycle, clever dialogue. This hits up all of my niche interests in addition to just being a well-polished game.

It's not without its faults. As my gnoll explored the city, making money and investigating, I ran into some hiccups on my end. Money took a bit to figure out. Some leads were difficult to pursue. It was occasionally hard to know what to do. But are these faults, or essential parts of the game experience? I got a satisfactory, though not perfect, ending.

I love it, overall. Because mystery and D&D are niche interest for me, I cannot guarantee others will enjoy it as much as I did.

My biggest critique of last year's Dungeon Detective was that I wanted more game to play, which is really more of a compliment than a critique. Well, I got what I wanted! Dungeon Detective 2 continues the adventures of our furry sleuth, Sniff Chewpaw. This time he's hired by a devil to look into the bombing of the devil's dungeon, and the resulting investigation is both longer and more in-depth than the one in the first DD. There are several more characters to interview, night and day periods that offer you different event options, a couple of minigames, and a currency system where you can earn and spend money. There's also an animated Chewpaw graphic, which is quite fun. You've got a lot to keep track of, but it all worked for me, and I found myself more engrossed in Dungeon Detective 2 than I did its predecessor.

A couple of critiques: The dungeon itself is on the small side, but there's enough interesting content before you reach the dungeon that that doesn't matter too much. There are also a few too many typos for my taste. But these are minor critiques, especially compared with Dungeon Detective 2's immersive play and appealing PC.

The original IFComp version had some bugs in it that stopped gameplay for me (and perhaps others). I suspect the game would have placed even higher in IFComp without those bugs, and I hope the author makes an updated version of the game publicly available.

One of my favorite games from IFComp 2019.

I was quite charmed by the first installment of Dungeon Detective and was a little worried this second game would disappoint. I needn't've worried; our intrepid clue-sniffing hero returns with his laconic humor, memorable side characters, and a character portrait to boot! I thought the idle animation of Sniff chewing his paw was very cute, and I really enjoyed the little glimpses into our protagonist's backstory, especially (Spoiler - click to show)meeting our old packmate Smash and (Spoiler - click to show)the will o' wisp's imitation of Spotmother.

The introduction of multiple possible suspects, red herrings, death, and the explicit demonstration of fantasy policing and racial bias really amped up the stakes for me, and felt like a natural progression of the themes introduced in the first game. I thought the currency system was a nice touch for the more urban setting, and was pleasantly surprised when it also tied into the larger themes at play. I was initially anxious that the day-night cycle would mean a time limit to solve the case, but my fears were unfounded. With a few exceptions, you can repeat previous dialogue, and the inventory system also stores clues.

Despite the additional content in this sequel, I did find myself frustrated by a few bugs. Namely, (Spoiler - click to show)the game freezing on the three balls during the juggling mini-game, despite having "caught" all three successfully. I had completed the mini-game the day before, and returned on the second day in hopes of earning a little more money through juggling. The bug persisted even after resetting the encounter. At another point, when speaking to Marathonis, I accessed an item in my inventory, and upon closing it, was greeted with a blank textbox--- no narration, no dialogue choices, just the option to save/load save. And finally, while this isn't strictly game breaking, I thought it a bit odd that (Spoiler - click to show)Marathonis can still ask Sniff to find his pet chest mimic, if you return the mimic to him before he makes his request. Out of curiosity, I returned to the dungeon, and lo and behold, the mimic was still there, as if I never gave up the emergency dagger to retrieve it.

Regardless, I'm quite pleased with this sequel and would recommend this to anyone who enjoyed the first game and was sad there wasn't more. My advice? Use one save slot as a quick save, and one for larger plot beats. I think a more accurate rating from me would be 4.5 of 5 stars, but I'm not one to be stingy.