We are increasingly happy to see productions land in the vast - in some areas perhaps too much - world of video games, and happiness becomes real pride when the titles developed by Italian studios prove to be extremely valid. Detective Gallo is an old-fashioned point and click adventure born in the heart of the Marche region from FootPrints Games, a team of four people - including collaborators - and founded by the brothers Francesco and Maurizio De Angelis. Detective Gallo is a title that has fun and has fun, taking himself little seriously and playing a lot on the paradox dictated by the composure of the role of detective approached to an animal that is not exactly fearful as the rooster. Button up your raincoat and straighten your hat, it's time to fight crime… right Spina?
Vegetable crime
The plot will come to life in an evening like any other, after the comely and gloomy Detective Gallo he received the usual sugary gift from Candy, a candy seller madly in love with him. The air is heavy in the infamous “knife district”, and not just because of the disgusting garbage that soaks the asphalt. Crime doesn't wait, crime is around the corner… or right in our office. That funny little man with a disreputable look is standing in front of the professional detective's desk, and surely you have to be alert. Fortunately, the elegant protagonist always carries his trusty revolver and his dear friend cactus Plug, ready to advise you at any time. Slow and inexorable as the times of the law, our hero goes to the scene of the crime, to investigate Mr. Chlorine. The matter stinks, and this time not because of the roads.
All in one night
As we anticipated at the beginning, this point and click is created to have fun. The settings created for Detective Gallo create a perfect context for the tones of the narrative, where the allegorically noir theme is scrambled for good by bright colors and unlikely situations in the real world. The theme-tone dualism is also found strong in the graphic style chosen by the team for the production, purely cartoon both in the phases played and in the short video scenes. Without saying a word further on the plot to be discovered, we can say that the adventure manages to entertain the player thanks to an excellent fluidity and coherence in the evolution of events, without letting us miss twists totally unexpected. The various game backgrounds will be unlocked as the plot progresses where, as in all self-respecting puzzle games, there is a great variety on the "how" (A key to find? An event that will force us to open a door? The unnerving waiting for the end of the work in progress?). This means that Detective Gallo is given to the player in small doses, accompanying him for a total of time between 6 and 10 hours, depending on the player's level of experience.
Rooster's rule # 88
Don't use what you don't know how to use. The gameplay of FootPrints' artwork is what the genre has ever offered us the most classic and dynamic: right and left click respectively to interact with the objects and / or look at them, space bar to highlight the active points on the map, and clearly the inventory that can be consulted by moving the mouse arrow to the top edge of the screen, but also by scrolling the mouse wheel. The puzzles proposed by the De Angelis brothers are of various kinds and in many cases will require all your wit. Although some will be quite clear in the resolution, "useless" objects have also been included in the game, so as to punish "nicely" the classic trial and error that arises in most players once you get stuck. As already anticipated, it will be your ability to determine the longevity of your experience, but compared to the average of conventional point and click adventures Detective Gallo unfortunately it is relatively short, especially if you eat bread and puzzles for breakfast.
Rooster's rule # 1
Being professional, controversial and meticulous, the three "P's" of Gallo. As can be seen from the last two titles, our feathered detective is chock full of self-imposed rules, which he says are even over a thousand. This and many other characteristics, such as a marked cynicism, the absolute prohibition of dirtying one's coat, and an aspect that is anything but intimidating, are what make our hero an extremely successful character. This would not have been possible if the game's art direction hadn't been up to standard, including understanding dubbing so deep as to create the comic split desired by the team: powerful voice, funny appearance. All the characters of the cast that we will find in the game, even if they are not of a very high number, are endowed with unique peculiarities, with that comma that makes them both credible and paradoxical at the same time (did someone say Baby Thug? Ed). Among the guests present in the game, too the voices of the bakers who contributed to the financing of the game in the crowdfunding campaign: these were donated to side characters who appear at most once during the game, but which are a pleasant addition to the “fauna” of the city. Unfortunately in their case, the limit in the audio quality and in that of the speech itself is really strong, which is certainly understandable given that we are not talking about professionals, but unfortunately it really clashes with the general quality of the title.
