The Darkside Detective: Backside of the Moon Brings McQueen And Dooley Back For Six New Spooky Cases

The Darkside Division is clocking back in. Spooky Doorway has lifted the curtain on The Darkside Detective: Backside of the Moon, the next entry in its cult-favorite paranormal adventure series, and the first details already paint a familiar picture of low-fi weirdness, bumbling heroics, and surprisingly sharp puzzle design.

Set once again in the cursed-adjacent city of Twin Lakes, Backside of the Moon sticks close to the structure that made the first two Darkside Detective games sleeper hits. This is still a case-by-case anthology rather than a single long mystery, with six new investigations lined up that range from treasure hunts to run-ins with werewolves. The studio is keeping story specifics close for now, but the pattern is clear: each case is a self-contained paranormal incident that warps some everyday setting into something far stranger, then lets you click around, talk to weirdos, and slowly unpick what actually happened.

Tone is where Darkside Detective lives or dies, and nothing about the reveal suggests Spooky Doorway is dialing that back. Pocket Gamer’s report on the Steam announcement highlights the return of the series’ trademark blend of spooky ambience and very silly jokes. Expect McQueen’s deadpan one-liners, Dooley’s glorious cluelessness, and the kind of dialogue where even a throwaway item description is written for a laugh. The first two games walked a neat line between genuine urban-legend creepiness and affectionate genre parody, and the pitch for Backside of the Moon suggests the same balance: lots of supernatural twists and turns, but always played through a knowingly daft filter.

Returning to center stage are Detective Francis McQueen and Officer Dooley, Twin Lakes’ least equipped but most persistent defenders against the weirdness leaking in from the Darkside. McQueen is once again the straight man of the duo, the only person in the room trying to actually solve the mystery, while Dooley is there to lob in non sequiturs, misunderstand evidence, and occasionally, accidentally, say the one thing that nudges you toward the solution. Their chemistry gave earlier cases much of their charm, especially when recurring side characters and locations started to build a sense of a very odd but oddly coherent city. Backside of the Moon looks set to extend that, with more opportunities to see how Twin Lakes has changed (or failed to) since their last round of misadventures.

Visually, this new outing sticks with the chunky, expressive pixel art that has become the series’ signature. From the early materials, Backside of the Moon leans into moody lighting, dense shadows, and little animation flourishes that keep scenes from feeling static. That art style has always been a smart fit for the writing: simple enough to be nostalgic, detailed enough to sell a gag with a single sprite pose. Seeing werewolves, treasure hunts, and whatever else Spooky Doorway has brewed rendered in that familiar low-res style should immediately feel like slipping back into a well-worn trench coat.

The core structure remains classic point-and-click adventure design: you explore scenes, hoover up suspicious items, mash them together in occasionally unexpected ways, and use snippets of dialogue as clues. What Backside of the Moon can build on is everything the team learned across the prior two games. Those earlier cases often played with puzzle expectations, flipping between straightforward inventory chains and more lateral, joke-driven logic, but later episodes showed a clearer sense of pacing and signposting than the earliest ones.

Based on that trajectory, it is reasonable to expect Backside of the Moon to iterate in a few key ways. First, puzzle clarity will likely improve without losing the series’ taste for absurd solutions. Prior entries became better about hinting at the right line of thought through dialogue or background details, and new cases are well placed to double down on that approach, keeping things approachable for genre newcomers while still giving veterans a chance to feel clever. Second, the anthology format invites more mechanical variety. With confirmed scenarios that already touch on treasure and werewolves, each case can tweak the rules slightly, perhaps experimenting with more scene-to-scene continuity within a case or small, case-specific mechanics that keep you on your toes.

There is also room for smarter environmental storytelling. The pixel-art scenes in previous games often hid jokes and clues in corners, and a new set of locations means more opportunities to weave in foreshadowing or optional interactions that make puzzles feel grounded in the world instead of arbitrary. Given Spooky Doorway’s track record, expect Backside of the Moon to push that interplay between background gags and foreground objectives a little further, letting the environment itself do more of the hinting.

On platforms, the only concrete detail right now is a Steam page. That means PC is locked in, which aligns with the series’ roots in classic adventure-game fandom. However, it would be surprising if Backside of the Moon stayed there. Both the original The Darkside Detective and its follow-up made their way to consoles and mobile, where the point-and-click interface translated neatly to controllers and, especially, touchscreens. Tapping around a scene, dragging items into place, and reading dialogue at your own pace are all a natural fit for phones and tablets.

Clearly labeled speculation: given that history, it is very likely that Backside of the Moon will eventually arrive on at least some combination of Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox, following the path of its predecessors. A mobile release on iOS and Android also feels like a strong bet, particularly since Pocket Gamer’s coverage frames it as a natural addition to the platform’s adventure-game library. There is no firm confirmation yet, nor any release window, so for now the safest assumption is a PC-first launch with other versions potentially announced later. Until Spooky Doorway or publisher Akupara Games spells it out, platform plans remain unofficial but promising.

For fans of paranormal comedy and thoughtful but accessible puzzles, The Darkside Detective: Backside of the Moon looks like a straightforward case: one worth keeping on your radar. With McQueen and Dooley back on the job, Twin Lakes’ strangest files are about to get a lot thicker.