Detective Ridelle

genuinely good puzzles, made me feel very smart and a great inbuilt hint system with no punishment for needing them. the visual novel part was longer/more involved than i expected and at times went on a bit long for me but i still laughed a lot and enjoyed the mystery. can't wait to see what else this dev puts out! :)

This game is short but very sweet! A lovely story, a good mystery, decent puzzles, and a wonderful cast of characters. Ridelle and Lucy are adorable! I think it does a great job of giving the player enough information and agency to keep ahead of the twists if one is paying attention, while also managing to sell the critical idea that the detective is very smart without being magical. My only criticism is that there is no fast text feature. There is a reason one might want to replay the game and it would be very nice to speed through text you have seen before on a previous playthrough (you can skip dialogue you have already seen in the current playthrough only). Very excited to see more of Detective Ridelle!

Nice detective game. Decent puzzles and character designs. I also liked the cel shaded locations with the paper cutout characters. The plot and writing were okay for the most part, although there were a couple logical flaws (e.g. [spoiler]why Ridelle never opened Preston's safe despite having the key all the time, or why Tuesday suddenly caved after Prestion's safe key was brought up when he didn't have it on him anymore[/spoiler]). What I didn't like about this game is the visual novel style dialogue. I'll never be a fan of clicking through lengthy conversations with zero choices to be made. The game could also have used a couple deduction minigames, like those in the [i]Sherlock Holmes[/i] games or in [i]The Darkest Files[/i]. And the finale was dragging on for too long. Doing it in 3 rounds was fine, but the dialogue should've been tightened up, particularly in the 3rd round, and some of it should've been condensed into cutscenes. However, even with these criticisms I did enjoy the game and am looking forward to the sequel they announced at the end. Rating: ★★★☆☆

Had quite a blast playing this one! Remind me of Paradise Killer that I just played not too long ago. Been some times for me to actually pull out a note and start gathering all the clues/hints to solve the puzzles. And yes, a side of lesbian hehe just what I like.

While there are some pretty big problems with the controller support and you have to constantly switch back and forth between controller and the mouse if you use a controller, the story was quirky, funny, and sometimes charming. While Tuesday's room puzzle is too convoluted, the rest of the puzzles are fairly straight-forward. I also appreciate that the game asks you if you would like to continue and warns you when you won't be able to look for the puzzle pieces anymore. I always appreciate a heads up when I won't be able to go back to areas and explore. I got this game on sale and it was definitely worth it. I especially liked the very last surprise ending and although I saw it coming, it's nice to be represented for once in a video game :-)

There is a lot of dialog, sometimes pretty repetitive. Puzzles are good, actually had to use my brain sometimes. Fun characters. Loved the final plot twist.

Recommended on sale, at full price I would have felt I overpaid. The game is pretty good, the graphics for the characters are cool even if the setting seems sparse, and the puzzles are at least logical and hit a nice balance between challenging and fun. Characters are varied and quirky. I'm mainly writing a review to bring up two issues I have that would have affected my decision to purchase had I known about them. One, there is no skip or hint on the puzzles I have done so far. I am currently unable to progress as I am in a six-stage puzzle where I am stuck on the fifth part. After several minutes of trying to do it logically I ended up just spamming it in hopes I would stumble on the answer, while swearing copiously. I rage quit, went to look for an answer on line and there does not seem to be any guides or walkthroughs at least for that portion. Which brings me to issue two. The game autosaves at the end of each segment. If you go to quit it says your progress will be saved. It will be, but only to the last autosave. Which means when, or more realistically if, I went back my progress in this puzzle will be gone and I will have to start over. Just wanted to make sure folks know that before purchasing.