Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be three ducks piled under a trench-coat? No? Well Duck-tective shows you anyways.

Check out the itch.io page

Trailer

The concept

Most mystery-solving games are often a lot of exploration and very basic object-to-situation connections or “yes or no” type of questions. This was the case of the very first Ace Attorney which I loved. And then there’s a niche of games which don’t hold the hand of the player and lets you figure out the mystery. This is the case of Return of the Obra Dinn or Detective Grimoire which were big inspirations for this game. As for the art and context, it was heavily inspired by the classic Sam and Max games.

In Duck-tective, the challenge is not particularly on exploring, but on hypothesis making. There is a crime scene, and to gather clues, you have to balance your pile of ducks while sneaking around humans while remaining incognito. The world interaction was inspired by Untitled Goose Game.

Once you got your clues, the player has to make an effort to understand the environment they navigated through. Why is there broken glass here? What does this trail mean? Which characters I met are relevant? From there, they use the hypothesis interface to formulate hypothesis. They don’t have to be correct, they just have to be valid. But as every scientist knows, no hypothesis can be validated without some kind of evidence.

This would then lead the story on a given path, either a false trail or a right one, who knows.

The Story

Duck-tective is set in a world where birds are intelligent and conscious but hide it from humans. Think Toy Story but with more… feathers. This is called The Secret, the one that should be kept from humans at all costs. Why? Well, imagine the humans went at war against the birds, they have a clear advantage as birds don’t have hands.

Chief of the bird police Pelicano is called on a very unique case. For the very first time, a bird killed a human, this threatens the secret. In order to keep the case as confidential as possible, he hires the best team.

Becky is a young investigation journalist who Pelicano recognizes for her wits. She is forthcoming, courageous, basically the “hero” kind of character, no way she fails, right? right? She is focused on finding all the truth on this case.

Barry is an old policeman nearing his retirement. He has seen it all, and when he teams up with Becky, he sees the over-the-top motivated youth that she is. He just wants the case to be closed, the culprit to be behind bars, nothing fancy.

Buck He’s Pelicano adoptive son. Not the cleanest beak in the flock, but the most pure-minded there is. He’s there because… Well we found no one else.

My roles on the project

• Game pitch, just like Divunity, I brought the idea in front of my colleagues with a crude game concept and a clear vision. I had the pleasure to fullfil this “game director” type of position throughout the development.
• Systems design : I worked on the hypothesis system with my friend Léa
• Writing : I wrote the story for the entire game, which you can read below if you don’t mind spoilers, as well as all the ingame prompts and dialogues, both in french and english in parallel.

I wanted to step back from prototyping and programming and focus on what I love most: writing. Because we were a team of 9, I could do that, but we also had less time. I’m very proud of how the game turned out, but all the systems do feel rough around the edges, we couldn’t make more time for iteration. Expanding on the hypothesis system, improving the UI and the user experience as well as overhauling the character’s movement would be my priority today.

Friends

The incredible team that allowed Duck-tective to exist

The Documents

These are all the game’s dialogues