Cure weird illnesses in Wunderdoktor, out now
Pop pimple, poke eyes
Become a doctor, they said. Travel the land on a spooky train, they said. Make a difference, they said. You know how much you admire Dick Van Dyke in Diagnosis: Murder, they said. Before long, I'm popping pimples, yanking worms out of arms, popping eyes back into sockets, cutting off horns, dodging a shower of leeches, playing tunes on nostrils, slapping ghosts with a flyswatter, and investigating a shady pharmaceutical company. That's all in a day's work in Wunderdoktor [official site], a new doc 'em up released this week. I've had a quick bash and heartily enjoyed it.
Here's a terribly crude description of Wunderdoktor: Trauma Center meets Papers, Please in spookyland. I'll explain.
We play a travelling doctor with our own moving train clinic. Ring the bell and a patient shambles into view of our desk then, after a little chat, our magic hand/cursor gets to work treating them. It's a spooky-ooky world where we'll pop pimples, squish flies, stick noses back on, pop eyes in, cut people open, give 'em pills, and so on and so forth while trying not to kill them. Different illness combine in sometimes-tricky ways, creating little problems like in which order to tackle ailments, how to deftly weave the scalpel past things which aren't yet safe to touch, and picking the right pill from a pile while the timer runs down.
Once you're done, send the patient home, ring the bell, and meet a fresh patient. Or meet a shady pharmaceutical rep. Or an aubergine-headed fella who invites us to a party. Like in Papers, Please, little stories and mysteries unfold along the way.
I do like its look and sound, a grotesque storybook style where a dangling eye is an "oh dear" rather than an "ewww". My medical journey has reached the second region, where people appear to be made of terrible vegetables. I am delighted. I am keen to continue my career, which I'm sure will be filled with many more awful ailments. One of the later zones appears to be undersea; I must tell Pip about this.
Wunderdoktor is out for Windows, Mac, and Linux through Steam. It costs £6.29/€8.99/$8.99 right now, which includes a launch discount.
If this seems familiar, you might well have played Wunderheilung, the small game which blossomed into this, when we posted it back in 2014.
