One of the things that has always been a selling point for indie games is their willingness to do things differently. Outside of gameplay styles and more obvious elements, another is that it has become more commonplace to see titles featuring characters and locations from different cultures. In all areas of entertainment, representation can be absolutely crucial, and broadening the scope of influence into cultures that are more uncommon to see is refreshing. In the case of Detective Dotson, that involves tackling a sort of mystery action-adventure, and moving the locale to India.

Right off the bat there’s no doubt that the game is simply going to be different, and that goes beyond merely where the action takes place. The visual style is distinctive as well, layering 3D models over top of what appear to be hand drawn backgrounds, and then featuring vibrant colors pretty well everywhere. I’ll admit that the unusual sense of scale sometimes between the people, some objects, and the buildings around you feels like a choice at times, but it absolutely helps the game stand out nonetheless. Again, there are some elements that don’t play particularly well together, in places giving the game a patchwork look overall, but it’s absolutely distinctive.

In terms of play, it’s also a bit all over the place, but depending on what you’re looking for that could be either a positive or a negative. Refusing to simply adhere to the classic point-and-click mechanic, you’ll be able to run around, do some mild platforming, and get sucked into a variety of mini games as well. These include more traditional distractions like some hidden object puzzles, but some are more action-oriented as well. Unfortunately, these range from decent to poor in implementation, but they are a pretty daring move. 

I do wish that it wasn’t quite so stripped down in spots, with some characters simply showing the item they want and what they’ll give you rather than including some dialogue to add some flavor, but for the most part it works well enough. I do think that the interface for trying to pull together your clues and assumptions ends up feeling awfully clunky though, both in terms of its construction and mechanics. Trying to drag the pictures and assumptions into place doesn’t work very smoothly, and the very structured expectation for how you’ll present each piece of evidence doesn’t always feel intuitive either, even when you know the solution. All in all I do appreciate how different it looks and feels, I just wish that its overall implementation was a bit stronger.