Duppy Detective Tashia stumbles but charms

A point-and-click visual novel murder mystery.

Duppy Detective Tashia follows a young Jamaican girl, named Tashia, who drops her phone in the middle of the street. Someone bumps into her and somehow, while she was standing next to the phone looking at the culprit who bumped her, someone snatched her phone from under her. It could have been the one who bumped her; it could have been someone else. With a crowd around her, I’m not sure how anyone would get away with crawling on the ground to grab a phone that was obviously not theirs while she’s audibly complaining about it. I’ll try to suspend my belief.

The animation is great. It’s a mix of Proud Family and anime expressions. Tashia chases her thief—the scene cuts to a funny overhead shot of the street with two icons, one chasing the other. When the scene returns to the ground, she continues the chase, then the screen fades to white, and we’re now looking at a towering burly tree. I thought this was a scene change, but according to the archangel we just met, we’re dead. Tashia ran into the street without looking. It wasn’t clear she died when the screen turned white.

Tashia is a silly game. Avoiding showing Tashia’s death was likely less about keeping things kid friendly, and more about avoiding sad feelings. A moment of shock to show something happened with a faster fade to white could help make sense of the transition. There are silly ways to convey that. I’m not sure why the developer didn’t choose to do that. It shows negligence.

Negligence is common in Tashia, like when dialogue ends without any punctuation. Yes, line breaks make more obvious the sentence ended, but what’s the trouble of adding a dot? A few times I was confused if the person had a full stop or if all the words were meant to run together. It’s a shame something like punctuation has been demonized. Somehow “No” is softer than “No.” What broken-hearted person concluded that full stops were negative? And can we not let them dictate social grammar? Besides, any missing punctuation means we can insert our own meaning, and that’s not the point of writing. Stories are told with words, and they’re felt with punctuation. They’re felt with punctuation!

Okay, you get it. Anyway, Tashia’s in a forest now. The archangel explains that someone of great importance has been murdered and he’s trying to figure out who did it. Tashia’s freaked out about being dead, but quickly volunteers to help solve the murder, but also wants to find her phone so she can someone escape from the forest—but she’s still dead. I can’t suspend my disbelief anymore. I don’t understand the motivation. Again, negligence.

This is a point-and-click adventure game. So once we get through the nonsensical setup, we get to actually enjoy the game. Based on the demo, it’s more about meeting people and catching what they say rather than utilizing a mix of conversation and environments to hide clues. It’s a cozy type of murder-mystery, so it’s our connection to the characters that moves our interest. It works. All it takes is a little absurdity, a little red herring, and we’re not quite sure who could be at fault. But the story plays out almost linearly. It feels guided. By the end of the demo, it becomes a social deduction game. You have to vote someone out the forest, and I felt like my choice wasn’t mine because I didn’t—read: couldn’t—gather enough information. If the goal is for it to be guided, I think it works because the characters are intriguing, but my expectations weren’t set for that.

The characters are a range of silly but intriguing personalities, and written using their Jamaican dialect, which is sometimes hard to understand. I’ve talked to and heard enough Jamaican’s to figure it out, but I can only imagine what people who haven’t heard a Jamaican are thinking. I wouldn’t propose a dumbed down translation. The game opens up with a definition of Duppy (pronounced duh-pee). It means ghost or spirit. The word originated from Africa and is frequently used in the Carribean, particularly Jamaica and Barbados. Perhaps one could click on an esoteric word and a funny pop-up appears to clarify and provide more examples of the word in context. No matter the solution, it’s best if it makes the game easier to understand and brings more understanding of the culture without sacrificing its intended idea.

Try Duppy Detective Tashia.