04 May,2025 08:00 AM IST | Mumbai | Jaison Lewis
Detective Dotson
What do you get when you cross retro adventure games with Indian flair and a pinch of Bollywood magic? You get a game like Detective Dotson. The game, developed by Masala Games, takes you on a journey as you try to uncover the conspiracy that led to your father's death. On the way you will meet bubbly bhabis, gossipy aunties, corrupt officials and a whole plethora of very Indian characters. I commend the developer's ability to walk a fine line, appeasing the biases of the West while keeping it close enough to home for the Indian audience to enjoy. This game was made to be played by Indians, and there is enough to get us to chuckle occasionally.
As Detective Dotson, you have a classic investigation wall where you string together theories and solve cases. It is a nice mechanism and thankfully, things do get more complicated as you progress in the game. I also like the fact that you can disguise Dotson and use those to get special power-ups and access. However, this was used sparingly in the released part of the game. To power the investigation, you have to exchange certain items with people for information. You can either buy these items with the coins you earn in the game or you can find these items lying around the place. The menu does a nice job of tracking who wants what. That said, just exchanging things for information is not the only source of information; you can get the same pieces of data from various sources, making it fun to populate this board. The simplistic control system will make this an easy game to pick up and play. I also really like the graphics of the game; for me, it's one of the highlights. A few fun aspects I enjoyed were bargaining the price of everything and picking up trash to get hint points and cash.
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While I do love the game and the concept, I am a little disappointed with the puzzles. They are too simplistic, and I didn't have to rack my brain a lot to complete them; it felt like a bit of a copout to me. I was not a fan of mini games either; some, like cricket games, lacked a proper tutorial on what you needed to do, while others, like finding objects in a scene, were just too boring. I hope there are some better mini-games in the rest of the game. I am hoping the chapters promised in the future will offer more. I also did not like the voice-over at all; for some reason, it always felt off. For starters, they seem disconnected from their environment. When I hear two people talking, it isn't happening in a silent studio; background environmental sound is completely missing in the dialogue. So, if I am in a room, I want some of that background noise reflected. There is a distinct quality difference between the music, which is top-notch, and the dialogue's audio quality, which feels amateur.
Detective Dotson overall feels like a labour of love. Masala Games, the developers, have taken a lot of pain to deliver a video game that is true to the Indian experience. While I enjoyed the game, it is painfully short and fairly simple to play. I would compare it to classic retro adventure games from Sierra and LucasArts, but it lacks the complexity that those games possess. I know it is a bit brazen to expect a small studio to put out that quality of storytelling, but I want them to compete and win. They have something here that could have been huge if treated with care. That said, for the price, it isn't a bad deal, and despite my reservations, I think it is a game that many people would enjoy playing. So if you are in the mood for a masaledaar indie game, why not support Detective Dotson?
