.png)
Duppy Detective Tashia Review
- Taylor Rioux
- Jun 9
- 3 min read
SPOILER WARNING: Major plot spoilers for Duppy Detective Tashia are contained within this review. |
Many things are lost to us over time; Remotes swallowed by the couch, keys misplaced on the counter, memories of days gone by — any number of things can escape us, given enough space. Culture may be chief among them, especially when different cultures collide or grow together over decades. So, when Tashia is transported to another world full of spirits — known as “Duppy” in Jamaican Patwa — it comes as a shock to her, as does her untimely demise.
Set on the task of solving the mystery behind the murder of Anansi the Spider, Tashia engages in a journey of discovery, both for the truth and her heritage. By speaking to the resident duppy of the Halfway Market, she is living the stories told by her grandmother, connecting to her forebears and their legends made manifest.
Publisher: Spritewrench Developer: Spritewrench Platform: Played on PC Availability: Released June 7, 2026, for PC (Steam). |
But Tashia is, by all accounts, a contemporary girl — at least at first. She speaks in everyday, American-style English and is more focused on her phone than the world around her. When navigating the Halfway Market, each of those delightful character icons bob and dance in unison to the beat of the music, even Tashia’s, yet her words set her apart in some ways. She is othered not only by her connection to the world of the living, but by the way she acts and speaks in relation to these ancient duppy within the visual novel–style conversations.
Things change a bit as the game advances. Her dialect evolves over the course of the game through interactions with the Duppy, shifting toward a more Patwa cadence that mirrors her connection to the spirits surrounding her. Perhaps this could be read as code-switching, but I think it goes beyond this. When she returns to the land of the living, she adopts its use going forward; she has simply become more comfortable, more in touch with that aspect of herself than she had been previously.
This is exemplified in the final scene of the game, when Tashia visits her grandmother’s grave, vowing to carry those stories and experiences with her and promising to share them with others. The events of the story have left an indelible mark upon her very soul, propelling her to action beyond solving a mystery.
Duppy Detective Tashia has a lovely look and personality to its art.
There’s a fitting African American English phrase that has seen heavy use in broader US culture over the last decade, largely thanks to former NFL player Michael Irvin: "We're losing recipes." Obviously, this is true in a literal sense, with old cooking techniques or family secrets being buried alongside the ones who carried them, but it extends to our cultures and other memes, as well.
Like many of the people and places that have been ravaged by the United States’ empire, the Caribbean islands have been subject to military and cultural intervention over more than a century — efforts that in large part remain ongoing. And while many people have sought to preserve and evolve the cultures and identities of these places over generations, the American mission to flatten everyone and everything into its vision continues.
That is why I see Tashia’s insistence on bringing these stories forward as an act of resistance. It’s not just a matter of telling people about a cool experience she had or convincing them the duppy are real, it‘s about bringing the culture forward into new generations, dispensing those stories as a means of connection with a shared identity and heritage. The idea of living as a sovereign entity, undiminished by the imperial foot, is a powerful one, but not impossible. After all, we’ve seen flowers bloom through the cracks in concrete.
However, playing games is not, by any means, real resistance — especially for games as light and breezy as Duppy Detective Tashia. Moving from conversation to conversation holds no real stakes, none of the choices you make have much sway on the way things seem to go, and for the player, very little in the game is pushing the boundary mechanically or narratively. Duppy Detective is less a call for action than it is a call for community, but there is a beauty in its simplicity, even with the rough edges of minor bugs and continuity issues coloring the experience.
So what can I take from a game like Duppy Detective Tashia? While the characters of the game are interesting expressions of Caribbean culture and history, that’s not mine to take and share. But I do think Tashia has the right of it — I could stand to hear the stories of my own elders and bring those forward to future generations in their place, helping preserve that history lest it be lost to time.
Comments