Detective Duck Walkthrough

This order is a difficulty curve, not a story requirement

Nothing in Detective Duck locks a case behind finishing another one first — you can queue into any live map from the start. The order above exists because Jewelry Store and Motel each hinge on one or two connected clues, while Suburbs, Train, and Prison stack multiple suspects, red herrings, and physical-evidence chains that are much easier to read once the core habit is automatic.

Each card above links to that case's full page: setup, every confirmed code, the suspect table, and the correct culprit with the evidence that proves it. Here's what that four-stage loop actually looks like once you're inside a case.

Locks are built from clues you already own

A door code is rarely a single note with four digits on it. More often it's a poster giving a direction or symbol sequence, paired with a second note somewhere else that tells you what each symbol is worth in numbers — the Prison case's arrow-to-digit conversion and the Museum case's painted mural date are both examples of this same pattern. If a lock feels unsolvable, you are almost certainly missing the second half of its clue, not facing a guessing puzzle.

The suspect list is a process of elimination, not a vote

Every suspect gets a role and a written statement, and exactly one of them contradicts the physical evidence you collected — a stain that doesn't match their alibi, a tool only they had access to, or a timestamp that puts them at the scene. Several cases (Suburbs is the clearest example) are built so the suspect who benefits from the crime looks guilty while the real culprit hides behind a clean-looking alibi. Confirm the contradiction before you submit; a hunch is not evidence.

Once the loop is second nature, the last piece worth knowing is which physical tools tend to repeat across cases, so you recognize them on sight instead of guessing what they're for.

Tools are single-use by design

Once a crowbar has pried its one panel or a plunger has retrieved its one item, it has done its job for that case — you won't need to carry it further or ration it like a resource. If you're holding a tool with nowhere obvious to use it, you likely haven't found its matching object yet; keep searching the room you picked it up in and the one immediately next to it.

With the loop and the tools covered, the last piece is the bigger picture — how many cases actually exist right now and what happens once you've solved them all.

New maps get added between chapters

Protocol: Anomaly has continued releasing additional cases beyond the core Chapter 1 roster, so the exact case count can grow between visits. This walkthrough tracks the confirmed P0 case list; check the cases hub for the current full roster before you plan a full-completion run.

If you're still building the core search-and-accuse habit, loop back to the beginner guide before tackling the harder end of this order — and keep the codes page open for any puzzle code you don't want to re-derive by hand.