Duckman was an adult-themed animated show about an anamorphic duck private investigator Duckman. The series ran from 1994 to 1997, lasting for 4 seasons. It followed the misadventures of womanizing Duckman, his associate pig Cornfed and the family of Duckman, his kids dimwitted Ajax and genius siamese twins Charles and Mambo. As Duckman's wife had passed, the kids were looked after by his sister-in-law Bernice, who is a fitness fanatic that detests Duckman. And lastly, there's Grandma-ma, Duckman's mother-in-law, who mostly just farts.
I can't say I've watched that many episodes of the show, so in that sense, I can't say how well the game mirrors what there was in the show. For a couple of episodes, I do remember seeing, the game does seem very similar, down to the characters and art style and voice acting. The only voice actor that didn't reprise their role was Jason Alexander, who was the voice of the Duckman in the series. His reasoning was, that the voice was hard for his throat and the game script had 5 times as many lines, so he'd rather not do that. The replacement voice of Michael J. Gough does sound pretty close to Alexander, from what I can recall.
The premise of the game is that Duckman has become a famous TV detective. Thanks to his new fame, he has abandoned his family and spends his days surrounded by women in a Hollywood "health spa". But as he has also forgotten to be present in the filming of his own show, he soon finds out that he has been replaced in the series as well as in his home.
Angry, Duckman storms the studios and is promptly thrown out. When he returns home, he finds that there is a man installing an electric fence around it to keep Duckman out. His son Ajax refuses to let him in as per orders from aunt Bernice. Abandoned by his coworkers and his family, Duckman is driven in despair. After an accidental suicide attempt, he is informed by his friend Cornfed, that there is something rotten about the new Duckman. They hatch a plan to get rid of him and return Duckman back to his family and the series.
Duckman is one of those 1990s overlooked adventure games, that didn't really get the attention they deserved. As far as design goes, it does a lot right. The puzzles are fairly logical, albeit require some amount of cartoon logic. The interface is super-simplified, the action cursor has been condensed into two smart icons, one of which is for examining, one for action. While you can die on a couple of occasions, these deaths result in Cornfed, who is narrating the game, noting how things could have happened in an alternative universe and the scene is rewinded in before you messed up.
Graphically the game looks good and the animation is roughly in the same ballpark as the series. Voice acting is all-around solid, having the voices of Tim Curry and Nancy Travis among a cast of seasoned voice actors. Overall, the Duckman has reasonably high production values.
It really is a shame, Duckman isn't sold anywhere at the moment. I'd go as far as to claim it as one of those lost adventure gems of the 90s. As it wasn't a game made by Sierra of Lucasfilm, it might have fallen in the cracks during the time of its release. And as it was based on a cartoon series, many non-American gamers might have missed it because of that as well. If the series wasn't aired visibly in other countries that are.
I would wager, if Duckman were to be re-released now digitally, it could find an audience. As it runs finely under ScummVM, the only issues around the release revolve around legal issues. Both, the developer and publisher of Duckman, have been defunct for a couple of decades, so whoever now owns the rights for Duckman, it would be nice if you'd consider re-releasing the game. There might be a buck or two in it.
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