India’s ‘Detective Dotson’ gets selected for Wholesome Games Steam Celebration

Made-in-India PC and Xbox game Detective Dotson has been selected for Wholesome Games Steam Celebration. The game will also be getting a new demo as part of the event.

Developed by Masala Games, Detective Dotson is a story driven adventure game set in modern day India. Players assume the role of Dotson, an aspiring Hindi cinema star turned detective, determined to find his father’s killers. Players can utilise the protagonist’s detective abilities to gather clues, wear disguises and interact with other characters to find information.

The game is selected to be part of Steam’s Wholesome Games Celebration, a limited time event that highlights “games that inspire optimism, joy and introspection.” The event will run from 15 (1 pm ET) to 21 August.

Wholesome Games is a community that was started on Twitter by indie game developer Matthew Taylor in 2019, to curate games according to their feelings of comfort, compassion and cosiness.

The demo for Detective Dotson will go live on its official steam page on 15 August at 10 pm IST.

The synopsis for the demo reads as follows:

  • Solve the Mystery of Mrs. Sengupta’s FOMO-mergency: in the case of why your aunty was blacklisted from her kitty party. 
  • Interact with our vibrant 2D meets 3D world, try out new disguises and take on new side-quests. 
  • And yes, you can pet the dog.

Masala Games will also release a new trailer for the game which will go live on 15 August from 3 pm IST. Detective Dotson will release on PC (Steam) and Xbox consoles in late 2024.

The Wholesome Games community has grown to nearly 500k members across Twitter, Discord, TikTok, YouTube and more, as per its official website. The community had live streamed an event Wholesome Direct, on YouTube and Twitch on 8 June. Organised by game journalist Geoff Keighley, the event included games like The Palace on the Hill (Niku Games), Tracks of Thought (Tidbits Play) and Kamaeru, a frog refuge (Humble Reeds) among others.

The community has a publishing initiative Wholesome Games Presents, from the team behind Wholesome Games and Wholesome Direct.