The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark

The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark

Released Apr 2021

Delouse your room with sage and pack up your travel-sized ouija board, it’s time to re-enter Twin Lakes - America’s 34th most haunted city. Join Detective McQueen as he puzzles his way through 9 chilling cases, risking life and pixelated limb to solve the macabre mysteries that plague the poor town.

95% positive · 2,029 reviews
Done
All announced content has been released
High confidence
Done
All announced content has been released
High confidence

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Evaluation

The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark launched on April 15, 2021 with six base cases. The developer then delivered three additional free bonus cases post-launch: "Ghosts of Christmas Passed" on December 24, 2021; "One Flew Into the Cuckoo's Nest" on April 14, 2022; and the final three-in-one anthology case "Tales From The Darkside" on October 27, 2022, which was explicitly announced as "the final case." At that point, the game's content was complete. In December 2021, the developer noted "two more bonus cases coming in 2022," and both of those were delivered as promised. No further content for this specific game has been announced or teased since the final case shipped in October 2022. The OST was updated in June 2024 to include music from the bonus cases, but that is a maintenance update rather than new game content. The studio has since moved on to other projects: they announced a new game, The Séance of Blake Manor, in March 2025, and announced a new entry in the series — The Darkside Detective: Backside of the Moon — in December 2025, with a playable demo released in March 2026. That sequel is a separate product on its own Steam page, not additional content for A Fumble in the Dark. A Fumble in the Dark itself is a complete, finished game.
Evidence
The final bonus case, 'Tales From The Darkside,' launched — explicitly described as 'the final case'
news post · Oct 27, 2022 source development ending
high
Developer announced the final bonus case, a three-in-one anthology, as the last planned content for the game
news post · Oct 1, 2022 source development ending
high

Content

1 of 1 released · no outstanding content

Media

Details

Developer
Publisher
Akupara Games
Achievements
30
Platform
Windows, macOS, Linux
Controller
full support
Steam Deck
Verified
Players
Single-player

About this game

Delouse your room with sage and pack up your travel-sized ouija board, it’s time to re-enter Twin Lakes - America’s 34th most haunted city. Join Detective McQueen as he puzzles his way through 9 chilling cases, risking life and pixelated limb to solve the macabre mysteries that plague the poor town.

Twin Lakes is a cursed city. Less cursed than say, “Demons are tearing it apart” but more cursed than “always loses its keys” or “often steps in puddles”. It’s roughly in the middle of the cursed scale, is what we’re trying to say.

Cursed enough that it’s a nuisance. Cursed enough that somebody has to deal with it…

That’s where The Darkside Detective comes in. Whenever you hear a bump in the night, feel a tingle up your spine, or smell something fishy, Detective Francis McQueen isn’t far behind.

No, he doesn’t smell of fish - it’s a phrase, come on...

Picking up after the events of The Darkside Detective, McQueen has to save his usually-present (in body, if not mind) sidekick Officer Dooley from the Darkside, so the two can get back to what they do best - investigating the city’s many strange, often paranormal, always paradoxical goings-on.

Join them in this frighteningly funny point-and-click adventure as they investigate nine more standalone cases bringing them to a carnival, the local retirement home, an amateur wrestling circuit and even as far away as Ireland as they do what they can to keep the Darkside at bay.

Like how this sounds? Try the first title.

Last evaluated Jun 27, 2026
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