Wunderdoktor Review


Stay still or you’re going to get stabbed, and it’s not going to be my fault.


Released: October 11, 2017
Available on: Steam
Genre: Time Management Clicker
Developer: Ghostbutter
Publisher: Secret Mode

Wunderdoktor is one of the games I have that I picked up both because the gameplay looked like it would play as another that I liked and with how unique and weird it looked. With the premise sealing the deal for me more or less. However, on my original plan of playing it after picking it up, that didn’t happen and I’m just now getting to it. With how popular Papers, Please became and how surprisingly fun it was, we have gotten games that were like it or at least parallel to it. I’d say Wunderdoktor is parallel to it, and I’m mostly sure that this was the reason I was interested. Well, looks like it’s time for me to finally play it and see how it is after all these years.

Wunderdoktor has you play a traveling doctor on a train. You’re referred to as Wunderdoktor and your patients have some weird ailments affecting them. After treating your first few patients and reading a newspaper on what’s happening lately outside of your train cart, you’re approached by a potion selling Quack that wants you to give potions to your patients and send them on their way. Before you have the time of filling it out, a strange stone creature named Stein pops up. Telling you to not order potions, as they only relieve the pain temporarily and are addictive, so you do. After all, you want to cure what ails your patients and hopefully not have them coming back. Stein actually worked for the Quacks before he escaped and he even managed to grab a recipe that they didn’t want to make. Curious on why, you set out to find out. The ingredients should be easy to get, as you’ll eventually get them through treating patients.

As you’re traveling through the couple of locations your train will be going through, you have patients to take care of. Ringing the bell once you’re ready, your patient will come in and say a line or two which may include how they got into their current position. For the most part, you will clearly see what’s wrong with them and it’s just up to you to figure out hot to deal with it (though Stein does help with the aspects that will hurt you or the patient). Sometimes, it requires a bit more to find out what’s wrong. Some patients will require their shirt to be removed to reveal what’s hiding and some will have you use a magnifying glass to reveal what’s hiding. You’ll come across a variety of conditions and they get harder as you go along the game. You start with simple pimples that you just have to pop or annoying flies to kill, but you soon get patients with spikey branches that you have to cut off, a bundle of painful pimples that you have to time right to remove painlessly, thorns that can’t be removed until everything else is, and consitions that need you to do a specific melody. There are even ghosts that can haunt your patients and can cause their own havoc, like shaking the screen or throwing leeches at you, that you can’t smack away (which the smack is so satisfying, I wish there were more patients that needed a smack). The simple ailments that you see at the beginning will even return, but be harder to deal with as they, say, swing around.

Oh and did I mention that there is a timer? Stein grows a candle when a new patient comes in and it melts as time goes on. The candle will also take a good hit if you hurt the patient or hurt yourself. This makes certain patients a hectic appointment as you’re trying to click the stupid mosquito-like bugs and annoying telling your patient through he screen to stay still. There are these little creatures that can increase the candle, but the blue mist that summons them doesn’t pop up that often so just do your best.

Wunderdoktor does have collectibles in the form of the Almanach, which will hold all these different scraps of paper that you’ll be given or making. You’ll be getting the most Almanach entries through the incinerator once the meter fills up every time you successfully treat a patient or incinerating parts of what fell off of them. There are also some that are story scraps, which are tied to certain patients that you’ll need to help to get it, which usually means getting an item from a patient and giving it to another. You won’t know when the first one comes, but generally when you can take something off and have the option to put it back on, keep it until a future patient mentions that they need or want it.

Full on skeletal arm? Bandage. *cashes in my “be like a public school nurse” coupon*

Verdict

Wunderdoktor is a pretty good game all things considered. While there are some annoying conditions that you’ll have to deal with, and some will bring you to the wire, this does enough to grab your attention and wanting you to continue playing. I also like how this went with the weird route as I did quite like how the characters were designed (and looking forward to what the next one will look like) and the different conditions they come in with.

I’m actually a bit glad that I waited so long so I could write this review, and after wondering if the developers made another game, I found out they did (and it was released on my birthday), and it’s a photography game so I’m definitely picking that up.

RipWitch

♡ ♡ ♡ A witch that goes for anything that peaks her interest no matter the genre. Currently obsessed with the Persona series and trying to make a dent in my backlog. ♡ ♡ ♡

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