Dupery: A Game of Solo Deduction is the latest title from developer Gilded Rune Games, you take the role of a retired detective in a noir city that has been brought out of retirement to bring down your old adversary the “syndicate” a shadowy criminal origination suspected to be behind all the crime in the city. It’s up to you to hunt down these nasty criminals using your powers of deduction and eventually uncover the kingpin of the syndicate so you can remove the head of the snake and free the city from the tendrils of the evil syndicates grip.
Solving crimes with the power of deduction (and RNG).
Dupery is a unique mix of puzzle game blended in with roguelike elements, which sounds complicated (and honestly, it is) the great thing is each run is random and different which really adds to the games replayability. Each round consists of you as the detective solving a case via interrogation and deduction. These cases are played out on a small investigative grid where a number of characters, chosen from a larger list of potential suspects, each reside. It’s your job to correctly identify and arrest the criminals while avoiding accidentally having innocents arrested (or killed).
Characters roles are split into four categories. Civilians are either innocent, where they typically offer useful information, or meddlers, who often cause trouble such as lying about their own role or sometimes even killing other characters, while still on the right side of the law. Each character is either good or evil and has a unique trait and sometimes a skill that you must use to identify the location of the suspect or suspects on the grid. So, for example, the Gossip announces the number of suspects surrounding the suspects square or the Reporter will announce how many steps from his square it is to the nearest subject.
A puzzle game where everyone is lying!
These characters may also be lying and could be an evil character pretending to be a gossip to feeding you false information as every time you accuse the wrong person you lose karma and if you lose too much you receive your marching orders from the mayor and are un-ceremonially sacked! To complicate things further there could be more than one suspect working alongside the others lying to you, so it gets extremely hard to discover who is who or indeed who to trust is telling you the truth. The evil criminal characters are split between syndicate underlings who either disguise themselves as other roles, corrupting others then you have traitors, who specialize in making things more difficult by committing acts such as killing off other characters or increasing the penalty for arresting a civilian by mistake.
Interestingly Dupery follows a roguelite structure, after each successful case completion, you’re offered a choice of random upgrades or effects, such as guaranteeing a particular suspect is always on the board or gaining more reputation after you solve the case which is handy as reputation is essentially your life. This roguelike aspect really helps with replayabilty coupled with the fact the cases are procedurally generated meaning no two runs are the same.
Dupery is a very difficult game compounded with the fact sometimes it’s pure luck involved which can be frustrating, if you have multiple suspects lying, I had on occasion a 50/50 choice on which the cases success hinged. Failing because of this was not a good feeling however when you do deduce all the suspects correctly Dupery is a very satisfying and compelling experience which fires you up for the next case.
A challenging experience guaranteed to test your gray matter.
Sometimes a game comes along and reminds you that although you have a GCSE grade D in woodwork you aren’t in fact as smart as you think you are in fact you are a borderline moron! There were cases I was convinced I had correctly followed all the clues correctly and I was certain I knew who the hidden criminal was only to be proved wrong. Its only after I reread the clues and realised my mistake and Dupery is great for that it really gets you thinking. Although it’s not really a game to just pick up for a mindless 30 minutes you REALLY have to expend some brain power while playing.
Overall Dupery is a lovely looking game, I enjoyed the gritty noir setting along with the matching soundtrack and it also ran without any issues on either my PC or handheld device in fact it’s probably more suited for couch play than sat at a desk as solving crimes whilst lying in bed became my nightly routine. If you are after a fiendishly difficult puzzle game to get your neurons firing, you can’t really go wrong with Dupery coupled with the fact the roguelike aspect adds a randomness to play really enhances the experience. you can find the game here to give it a try for yourself.
