Detective Ridelle

Confession: it took me two tries to get into this game. Having finally completed it, I can now state I enjoyed it, recommend it, and look forward to a sequel. The first time, I got off to a bad start by missing an obvious clue and had to brute-force a combination, which is my fault, not PuzzLab's. I also wasn't sure how I felt about the character art style (2D in a 3D environment), and I paused about halfway through. Then my computer broke, resetting my progress, and I never picked the game back up. Now, I've played again. The art style grew on me early: it's simple yet expressive, and the artists did a fantastic job using minor changes to represent strong character emotions. The game leans into its status as a puzzle-heavy mystery (escape-room style), and once I understood that and embraced it, I found myself having a much better time with it. The characters are varied and their interactions are well-written, especially the dynamic between Ridelle and Lucy; the hints of romance between them may be telegraphed, but that's not a bad thing. The game has its weaknesses, and part of that I found in the mystery itself. The culprit reveal was gettable, but not the clearest, and …

A fun little murder mystery escape room to spend an afternoon/day on. The characters were all charming, the script got a chuckle, and puzzling the full situation together was fun watching it all pull together. A lovely time.

Really fun puzzle game, all of it felt just the right amount of difficult for me. The plot is fairly standard, but the character interactions are very charming, also lesbians. Definitely a hidden gem, would highly recommend if it looks at all interesting to you.

Fun game, a good mix of easy and more difficult puzzles. A bit of a shame that a lot of the 'detective' work is done by the characters and not the player, but I still enjoyed it!

Very cute, funny, and mildly challenging at times. A nice and short puzzle based experience that I highly recommend.

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 :-)