Detective Dotson review

A whimsically balmy Bollywood-styled side-scroller whose story and gameplay never fully find their footing

Games often transport us to wild and exotic places, from steampunk Victoriana to the dark side of the moon, but it's a refreshing change to instead be dropped into the colourful world of modern India, Bollywood-style. Detective Dotson, by Indian studio Masala Games, takes fairly conventional join-the-dots deduction and turns it into a short but memorably exotic experience. There's family drama, haggling, Holi colour bombs, and random flash mob dances, not to mention cross-dressing and cricket. Unfortunately the actual mystery isn't especially deep or complex, and neither is the gameplay, but it's so varied and gleefully executed that it’s hard not to get drawn into its quirky world while it lasts.

Everything about Detective Dotson has been turned up to 11, starting with the opening cinematic, which isn't so much a cutscene as a feature-length movie, presented in Hindi with English subtitles on YouTube rather than in-game. Watching it isn't essential, but it does provide the backstory needed to fully understand what's going on. And like any good Bollywood movie, it mixes action, melodrama, and full-on dance numbers, making for quite the ride. As the curtain rises, Dotson, a wannabe actor, is grieving for his recently deceased police inspector father and obsessing over cricket with his friend Parth when a Bollywood star is assassinated at a protest march.

From there, the friends set out to cure their bad luck by following a fortune-teller's advice to dress up as holy men and get people to cry on a coconut. That works even less well than you might expect, because the moment he gets home Dotson is nearly killed in a house fire set by a mysterious white-eyed hitman. Then he narrowly escapes being suicide-bombed in jail, goes undercover dressed as his journalist girlfriend, gets captured and tied up backstage at the Cricket World Cup, and finally discovers that the dark force controlling the sinister Tapka Corporation is actually his mother. And that's just the edited highlights!

His eventual escape features an impromptu marriage, a disgraced cricket captain winning the cup for India after a divine revelation, and finally Dotson visiting his mother in jail to receive her blessing. Oh, and somewhere along the way, he joins the police force and becomes Detective Dotson. Phew! After all that, things come back down to earth with a bump when the game proper kicks off with a prankster painting his dog, Mr Papadam, pink. This is the first of four loosely linked cases that escalate until Dotson can finally investigate the suspicious circumstances surrounding his father's death. Sadly, events never again hit the breathless heights of the intro, but they do weave their way into a pretty little conspiracy.

Detective Dotson's graphics are similarly eccentric, combining 3D side-scrolling backgrounds with chunky flat pixel art characters. Some buildings are super-detailed and realistic, while others are simpler and more cartoonish, and everything is bright and colourful. It sounds like a weird mix (and it is) but it also fits the game's energetic, chaotic vibe in a way that more polished visuals wouldn't have. The action all takes place on a steadily widening stretch of street around the police station, running from a film set at one end, past shops, a temple, and a hotel to the edge of town. Dotson can enter most of the buildings, go from floor to floor, and even take in the view from roof terraces. And then (because it's that kind of game) jump off, sailing safely to ground level using an improvised parachute that looks like a hilariously oversized hanky.

For the most part, the music provides a chill background with just a hint of Indian seasoning, the same gentle piano melody tinkling away throughout. You might think that would get repetitive, but it's actually a soothing counterpoint to the overwhelming buzz of city life around you, with cars honking, crowds chattering, and drumbeats echoing around the temple square. There's no voice acting to speak of, aside from a handful of lines in short cutscenes that link the cases, but between the cheery jingles that play when you find items or discover clues and the tense gameshow-esque theme while you’re assembling them into deductions, the soundscape is just as crowded as the visuals.

Detective Dotson

Genre:	Mystery
Presentation:	2D or 2.5D, Side-scroller
Theme:	Cultural, Crime solving
Perspective:	Third-Person
Graphic Style:	Pixel art
Gameplay:	Investigative, Deduction, Minigames
Control:	Direct Control
Game Length:	Short (1-5 hours)

Gameplay-wise, Detective Dotson has a lot going on, as you're probably starting to expect by now. Solving each case hinges on filling in an evidence board with people, items, and concepts, and identifying the relationships between them. The connections (such as “hired” or “is wife of”) start out scattered around the board, but you'll need to uncover the rest by talking to people or looking closely around town. You might think that the main problem with interviewing witnesses wouldn't so much be getting them to talk as getting to the truth, but the reality is a bit more transactional than that. While a few people are happy to tell all, most want something in return, ranging from lunch or flowers to a straight-up cash bribe. Get them what they want, though, and they're refreshingly honest with you.

Fortunately for us, Dotson really hasn't got the hang of the detective thing, and he's not shy about pocketing anything and everything he finds, even from other people's houses. He can often trade his finds for more useful items, but he'll also need to buy a few things from local shops. He starts out with 500 coins (Dotcoins?), which doesn't go far in a world where a cup of chai will set you back 20, but fortunately the shopkeepers are open to haggling. You get three chances to make a lower offer, with traffic-light colours reflecting the vendor's mood; canny bargaining will get you a solid discount, but push too hard and they'll revert to full price.

If funds do run low, there are plenty of ways to make a little extra cash on the side. Picking up and binning litter earns you a few coins (and the chance of a bonus hint), while some passersby will buy items at a healthy mark-up. To make serious money, though, you'll have to try the minigames, such as a Bollywood dance-off, a game of street cricket, knocking pots off a Ferris wheel, or a straightforward hidden object hunt. These are fun, if fairly basic, and shouldn't trouble most players. The dance-off starts slow enough that even the most uncoordinated can probably keep up. Importantly, there are a lot more clues available than you actually need, so you can pick and choose who you want to deal with: on my second playthrough, I got almost to the end before I had to tackle a single minigame.

On top of all that, you can hide behind the scenery to eavesdrop on conversations, lure away corrupt flip-flop-throwing security guards to put potential witnesses at ease, and use a couple of telescopes to let Dotson's AI assistant Meera analyse the view from afar. The detective can even don disguises that open up otherwise inaccessible areas and new interaction opportunities, sometimes in quite startling ways. In his world of magic and spiritual wonder, cross-dressing empowers him to set off a Bollywood flash mob on command, while slipping on a holy man's robes lets him float (in lotus position, naturally) and read minds.

Actually controlling Dotson is, for once, fairly straightforward. He can walk left or right, run, jump, and enter buildings from the street. Light platforming on outdoor terraces and scaffolding lets him reach otherwise inaccessible spots, kept safe from mistakes by his hanky parachute. Keyboard and mouse, controller, and even touch input are all supported, though I ran into issues trying to switch between the last two mid-game on my Steam Deck. The evidence board is a click-and-drag affair, and you'll occasionally need to reassemble torn notes and photos, jigsaw-style. (It feels like these were designed for keyboard and mouse first, though, as controller-users are left to drive the cursor around with a thumbstick.) Just in case that sounds too conventional, there's also a full character customisation system that lets you change Dotson's outfit and hairstyle, well beyond simple disguises, because why not?

Dotson’s cases range from the whimsical (discovering who gave Mr Papadam his new look) to the overwrought (a jilted lover threatening to drown herself in the well), and they definitely fit the Bollywood mood. There’s a corrupt producer, illicit biryani, an illegitimate daughter, affairs and plots galore, leading up to a cliffhanger that teases a sequel. It’s too bad, then, that any dramatic tension is undercut by the actual gameplay. Aside from one gentle puzzle right at the end, investigations are limited to eavesdropping and bribing people to get the information you need, then assembling the pieces on your evidence board. For all the vibrant street life around you, it's an otherwise static world: no one will come after you because you're getting too close to the truth, and you can gather clues in any order you like. With so much to see and do, you’re unlikely to get bored, especially given the brisk two-hour runtime, but ultimately this is a game that prioritises its cheerful collection of minigames over its more dramatic underlying storyline.

Final Verdict

Like much of India itself, Detective Dotson is chaotic, colourful, full of life and energy, and vibrantly charming. The bonkers backstory movie alone is worth a watch for anyone who's ever had a soft spot for Bollywood melodrama, and the haggling, minigames, and deduction are sure to keep you engaged. However, without many puzzles to back it up, the experience is very short, and the story can't really follow through on its wildly melodramatic setup. Still, if you're in the market for a couple of breezy, joyful hours somewhere very different from wherever you are right now, Detective Dotson may just make a winning case.

Peter played Detective Dotson on PC using a review code provided by the game's publisher.

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