“Wunderdoktor” by Konstantin Kopka & Philip Feller.
“Step into the role of […] a traveling doctor whose daily work is to cure rare and exotic diseases. Explore a world full of quackery, ghosts and addictive potions.”
Full disclosure right ahead:
Sebastian Standke used a free key of “Wunderheilung”, provided by Konstantin Kopka, to play the game and write an article about it.
In April 2014, Konstantin Kopka created a wonderfully charming and pretty short puzzle prototype titled “Wunderheilung” for the twenty-ninth Ludum Dare. There you spent some minutes looking at your whimsical patients with a magnifying glass to discover their illnesses like a dropped out eye or giant blisters. Since then, I always waited for a new jam game created by Konstantin, but nothing came. For a good reason though, as I learned: In October 2017 he and Philip Feller published a complete, full-length release of “Wunderheilung” under a slightly new title: “Wunderdoktor”.
Basically, it is still the same game, as you have to cure your patients, but they added many different new kinds of sicknesses, treatments, patients and secrets. One hundred and twenty-five persons and creatures are waiting for your curing abilities: Play a melody with the teeth of a patient to discover the true symptoms of his suffering, remove the diamond skin of a poor miner with a grotesque cutting instrument, drag dropped eyes into the sockets again, replace missing hands with broccoli and much more.
Also, you will be the witness of a lovely background story: The so-called Quacks, a bunch of sinister ravens, have the goal of selling high-priced and also very addictive potions. Those neocapitalist birds are your enemies in the game, because they do not want their patients to be completely healed by you. Instead they want the people to feel better for a short time and afterwards get sick again, as it is more profitable.
Join the journey of the “Wunderdoktor” and his assistent golem Stein in five different worlds and meet vegetable people, criminal shark gangs, hard-working miners, hypochondriacs and scared patients. Fixate them, feed them pills, cut them open, burst their blisters, take care of worms and flies. It is quite unbelievable how much unique content takes place in the roundabout three-hour-long game.
But besides all that praise there is also a little criticism that I would like to add: In its best moments, “Wunderdoktor” is a hybrid of “Cuphead” and “Surgeon Simulator”, because it combines a very beautiful, uncommon audiovisual representation with some challenging, timing-based gameplay. But exactly that can be quite difficult, even frustrating. For some patients you will need several attempts to heal them; personally I needed over twenty-five minutes for the last one.
Do not be too scared by that, though: The game is not too punishing in the long run. When you try to cure a single patient very often, the game automatically recognizes it and gives you the option to increase the time for curing them. This way you will be able to finish the game on your own for sure. With all those features and content in mind, “Wunderdoktor” is an absolutely beautiful title that I highly recommend you to play. >>PLAY
