Detective Dixie Review

Our Review by Jennifer Allen on May 19th, 2015

Rating:

:: FLAWED MYSTERY

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Detective Dixie is an okay mix of puzzling and detective work, but it suffers from some terrible language issues.

Developer: Lukman Gunawan
Price: FREE
Version Reviewed: 1.0
App Reviewed on: iPhone 5

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Part puzzle game, part detective story, Detective Dixie has a lot of promise. It looks rather good too, with some great stylised features. There’s a big problem, though. It’s clearly been made by a team whose first language isn’t English and it shows. For a game so focused on storytelling this is a big issue, and one that some are going to struggle to get past.

You play Detective Dixie, a young and enthusiastic mystery solver. Visiting Wishteria town, the Mayor has been murdered, and it’s down to you to figure out what happened. That involves plenty of exploration, as well as piecing clues together.

It’s a fairly simple game to learn to play, with you picking up items by tapping on them, as well as tapping on characters to talk to. You gradually start accruing information, clues, and testimonies. That’s where you can piece them together in order to figure things out. There are puzzles too, such as needing to combine a few items to create a potion. It’s not hugely challenging, but it keeps your brain ticking along.

Unlike other games of this ilk, you do have to pay attention to what’s being said in order to fully understand what’s going on. This is why Detective Dixie’s poor localization is such an issue. Very early on, you’ll notice problems. At first, a ‘u’ instead of a ‘you’ but words being missed out provide a much bigger issue. Broken English makes it tricky to fully understand what’s trying to be conveyed here. Given that Detective Dixie is very text heavy, it soon grates on you. It’s not every sentence, but you’ll still inwardly wince when it happens.

Look past the language issues and Detective Dixie is quite a fun game. The combination of mystery solving and puzzling is a neat one, and while it might not hit the spot like something such as the Professor Layton series, it’s considerably cheaper. Pedants need not apply, however.