Duck Paradox Review

 Duck Paradox is a roguelike precision platformer developed by Magic Games and published by Midwest Games. I decided to review this game on a whim and I feel like I’m already regretting it a little. I’ve noticed quite a few mentions of “dwindling sanity” throughout the Steam page, which leaves me a little worried, but I’m gonna assume that it’s an exaggeration (I say as I mindlessly walk to my doom). I hope you like duck for breakfast, lunch, dinner, brunch, supper, and just about any excuse for food because you’re going to be killing a lot of ducks. And seeing the word “duck” a lot in this review. 

Seriously, there is very little I can do about it.

You play as Dr. Paraducks, a scientist who has lost her pet duck Quark. There is a slight problem in that said duck is lost in space and time thanks to a malfunctioning time machine, which has also created corrupted clones of her duck across the unravelling threads of reality. Whoops. With nothing but an upgradable ray gun and her dwindling sanity, she’ll stop at nothing to get her mallard back. This is all just from the Steam page and starting cutscene, so there’s very little story and there’s no mention of the good doctor’s declining mental health anywhere. It’s fine, but I would like some sort of indication of that. That being said, I think that sanity reduction might be coming from the player themselves (in this case, me).

Your goal in each level is to retrieve Quark and bring them back to the time machine, after which you’ll need to kill enough enemies near it to unlock the next stage. Do this 30 times, with the occasional boss fight, and you’ll win. It’s a lot harder than it sounds, but you’ll have all the tools to get through it along with the upgrades to keep pace with the rising difficulty. As mentioned before, you have a ray gun that is used to shoot enemies and activate switches when you’re faced with a puzzle. You can also dash to phase through attacks and slow down time to nail trickier jumps, hit impressive trick shots, or dodge incoming ducks.

Once you’ve opened the portal to the next level, you’ll get a choice of upgrades in the form of, what else, ducks. These ducks can provide a variety of stacking buffs like how fast you can fire your gun and how many bullets per shot, movement speed, jump height, etc. You’ll get an upgrade for free but if you want more per level, you’ll need to find the hidden eggs and bring them back along with Quark. Don’t be fooled by how small a level can look. There are hidden areas that have harder challenges, and if you want to collect everything, you’ll need to check for breakable blocks. Want even harder stages? Well, you can transform Quark into a new duck to travel to a bonus stage. The normal levels are quite hard already. I can grasp the concept easily enough, but my execution leaves a lot to be desired.

It’s not helped by the onslaught of malicious mallards that want nothing but to end your run. Hostile ducks come in a lot of different types, from large ducks that burst into small ducks, exploding ducks, shooting ducks, ducks that revive like a phoenix, and much, much more. They are relentless and will interrupt your attempts at platforming, so they can definitely mess you up. However, your worst enemy is… well, your own bullets. If you miss, they bounce off walls and don’t despawn. The only way to get rid of a bullet is if it hits something, like an enemy or a breakable block. That makes any upgrade to your gun much more dangerous to both you and your enemies. You only start with three lives, with any more needing to be obtained throughout the levels or as a pity drop after a death. Oh, and you die in one hit. You can take another with a shield, but make a mistake and it’s all over. I hope you have a ton of patience because you will get angry eventually. But that doesn’t mean it’s unfair. You can definitely get through the entire game without getting hit once, it just depends on your skills. Don’t expect any help past upgrades obtained for a run, though, as there are no meta upgrades to rely on to get you to the end. The only permanent upgrades are gadgets that can allow you to break or pass through certain walls to access more upgrades sooner. It’s all dependent on your own ability to shoot and jump and a little luck.

If you’re tired of dying over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, there are two additional modes you can access at the hub once you’ve fulfilled their requirements. There’s Survival Mode, where your run never ends and it’s just all about how far you can go before you fall. Impossible Mode, meanwhile, makes the game even harder, so if you hate yourself, this mode might be for you.

Now onto performance, which is completely fine. Usually, with these 2D pixel art-style games, there’s nothing much to worry about in terms of stutters or frame drops and it’s no different here. You shouldn’t have any problems running it, and I didn’t encounter any glitches. That being said, wow, this game can really grind on your gears and it’s very often all your fault. If you aren’t good at these types of games, you will tear your hair out over your own incompetence. Also, Quark’s pathfinding can be a little annoying to deal with, lagging behind and getting trapped in objects occasionally.

Duck Paradox is good but I hope you have great patience and skill to get through it. While it rarely feels unfair, it will test your ability to maintain your sanity over endless hordes of ducks coming after you while you solve puzzles, make difficult jumps, and shoot, all at the same time while also encouraging you to play riskier and riskier with every level you play. I am not good enough for this game, and I accept that.

Ducks are dangerous, man.