Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping Review

I never played Happy Broccoli Games’ Duck Detective: The Secret Salami, but its sequel, Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping, looked very cute, and I love mysteries, so I decided to review this latest addition to the franchise. After the events of the first case, The Ghost of Glamping sees the divorced and bread-addicted Eugene McQuacklin — better known as the Duck Detective — brought along on a glamping trip by his roommate, Freddy Frederson. Because this is a mystery game, things quickly go wrong: camping chairs are stolen, tents are ransacked, and Frederson gets on the Duck Detective’s nerves.

For the uninitiated (myself included), “glamping” is short for “glamorous camping” and refers to taking a camping trip while maintaining access to modern amenities, like Wi-Fi. In this case, that means furnished campers and tents at a small campground set next to a spooky, old sanatorium. As with any respectable abandoned building, this one has a ghost story attached — it’s a tale of a mother searching for her son beyond death, and she apparently will mistake any young boy for her lad.

The glampers — our cast for this mystery — have a mix of reactions to the frightful fable, but they all are on the same page when it comes to the quality of the campground, or lack thereof. Camp manager Emilia is stressed out of her mind trying to keep everything in working condition and make sure everyone is having a great time. She’s also surprisingly quite skilled at relaying the ghost story and seems to have a keen grasp of the supernatural. Matilda, a high-ranking officer in the military who was the owner of the missing camping chairs, and her son, Tobi, the only young boy in the camp and the owner of a sick collection of Magikorn cards, are understandably worried about the ghost. On the other hand, Theodore, a man between jobs and with something on his mind, seems nonplussed by the spectre. Arnaud, a VIP guest who brought an assistant along, is more worried about his perfect skin in these campy conditions, whereas said assistant, Katja, just wants a chance to relax with her boyfriend, Frederson. Freddy, for his part, is scared out of his mind, but at least he loves the camp, his girlfriend, and spending time with his roommate.

However, pretty much everyone here has something to hide, and it’s up to the Duck Detective to uncover all of their secrets in order to solve the mysteries that pop up around the camp. This involves waddling his cute little sprite this way and that to discover clues and talk to the suspects. Doing this unlocks keywords that the Duck Detective can then slot into his notebook to figure out the facts of the case, Mad Libs style. Each little mystery features several statements with blank spaces to fill in with people’s names, the objects surrounding the case, and a few verbs to round things out. For difficulty, there’s an option to turn Story Mode on or off, which basically lets you know whenever you’ve entered an incorrect answer. Without Story Mode, you’re only given a notice at the bottom of the page saying how many solutions are wrong, ranging from “more than four”, “four”, “three”, to “two or less”. I prefer Story Mode off, because it gives me a chance to figure out the solutions for myself, but I can still confirm certain results with a little legwork.

The Ghost of Glamping is pretty short (notable slowpoke that I am, I beat it in two hours), and that gameplay loop is pretty simple, but that works in its favour. The cast is charming, and the gameplay never gets the chance to feel repetitive, so it makes for a fun couple of hours. I will say, however, that the game could have used more optional dialogue, as I found a few characters somewhat underbaked by the end. As the Duck Detective solves his mysteries, he will often decide to keep the details of the case to himself, or in some cases, to himself and also Frederson. Because of this, most of the cast don’t really get an opportunity to weigh in on new information as the case develops, aside from a small handful of major plot moments.

The Ghost of Glamping actually has a few different endings to nab, though they only seem to be based around a single decision right before the end. This is pretty darn cool, but after seeing a few of them, I got the feeling that the developer assumed everyone would go for a specific variation, as some of the lines after the ending-unique dialogue don’t make much sense without that specific ending happening. I mean, there isn’t much of a reason to test this out unless you wanted to see what else might happen, but that was still a bit disappointing.

Thankfully, despite a few minor mishaps, the game is charming enough to see it through to the end. The art style is, frankly, adorable, with cute, simple animal designs for each of the characters. Each gives you an immediate sense of what the suspect is all about, from the Duck Detective’s classic trench coat and hat private eye look to Emilia’s overstressed manager style. The environments look quite nice as well, with all the campground flair and detailed living spaces for the guests. Entertainingly, however, you don’t actually get to see anyone “walk” around the camp, per se. Instead, each character sprite seems to be a paper cut-out, a la Paper Mario, and they just waddle along, their sprites swaying back and forth to give a vague sense of movement. It’s rather cute and gives Duck Detective a tongue-in-cheek charm, further assisted by the inclusion of an honest-to-goodness quacking button.

The soundtrack is just as charming, serving up a variety of film noir-esque jazz tunes that are as smooth as a duck detective’s weathered hat. This is a game that’s nice to just leave open to provide sweet tunes, which is very cool, considering you’re expected to spend ample time in-game solving mysteries.

The acting is top-notch as well: every line is voiced, both in normal conversations and a handful of more in-depth cutscenes. The Duck Detective has a gravelly voice as typical of noir as the soundtrack, and Frederson perfectly hits that “annoying, but loveable sidekick” pitch. I was particularly impressed by Emilia’s ability to flip between nervousness, indignation, and eeriness when the situation calls for it. That scene of her reading out the ghost story behind the sanatorium sent chills down my spine.

All in all, Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping is a solid package, providing a great way to spend a couple of hours and offering a fun mystery, entertaining characters, and relatively easy puzzles while it’s at it. There are still ways to refine this formula, but there’s nothing wrong with it as is. I don’t know if I can say it’s for everyone, but it’s a great time for what it is.