The common people will stand up and depose the tyrant emperor of Austro-Hungary and replace him with a benevolent boar. Or at least that’s what Viktor, our titular hero, thinks after he quickly finds himself without a job. And thus begins the demo provided for the game to whet our proverbial whistles while they strive to get funded on IndieGogo. Being the sort that just can’t say no to a demo, particularly for a point and click adventure game, I decided to download it and give it a spin. Here are my thoughts.
Viktor is a street sweep. During the opening narration we see our boar hero in action as he’s…well, sweeping the street. When a newspaper blows into his face. As he’s reading the awful news about the emperor and his greed his boss catches him not working. And promptly fires his ass because his street is filthy and he’s reading on the job. Understandably pissed, he declares a personal war on the big cheese. Then heads home to take a bath. Because why not?
All right, so opening exposition done we get to the meat of the demo. You can finally move Viktor around, look at stuff on the screen, take stuff, and just do things that you would normally do in a point and click adventure game. The main puzzle of the demo, though, is to draw a bath for our boar. Fun. I won’t spoil the solution should you want to try it for yourself but it’s pretty self explanatory and simple. By the by, the bath also doubles for his bed. Ew. And it’s littered with nasty bugs. Double ew. Which you have to squash in a sort of mini-game before you can draw your bath. Complete with nasty squishy noises. Triple ew.
After you take a nice relaxing bath the phone rings. Which is somehow perched precariously on top of the toilet. And the only way to get it is with the same umbrella you used to squash the bugs. Which promptly falls into the toilet bowl. Fishing it out without cleaning it, he answers the phone. Quadruple ew. Another sort of simple puzzle ensues, you talk to your best buddy, and then start to head out the door. When you’re accosted by the landlady who demands her money. Which you promise to get through crowdfunding. Head meet fourth wall.
The demo for Viktor is very short. You barely get to know anyone but you do get a sort of feel for the game as a whole, the characters, and how the game plays. There’s nothing ground breaking about the controls. You have your standard icons (look, talk, take/use, kick), you have an inventory that you can use on other things, and you have your standard dialogue trees. Just how our “hero” plans on taking on the emperor is still very much left in the dark but I did learn one thing about said boar. He’s a pig. His place is a sty. It’s nasty. Ew.
