Doctor Kvorak's Obliteration Game

As a creative combination I'd place somewhere between Mars Attacks and an '80s gameshow, I find the game engaging with dialogue to be enjoyed by gamers who enjoy space epics and camp value. This isn't a fast-paced first person shooter, and it doesn't pretend to be, but the inclusion of a VR level editor is really cool. On the surface, the game is about saving planets, but the core content is more about the Doctor and his megalomania and odd insecurities. I'd recommend to anyone who likes adventure/puzzle games and out and out silliness :)

NOTE: This game was given to me by the developer for review purposes. This did not influence my review in any way. [h1]========================================================== ---------------------------------------OVERVIEW------------------------------------- ==========================================================[/h1] Doctor Kvorak's Obliteration Game is the debut title from indie developers, Freekstorm. It's a three-dimensional puzzle platformer with a unique setting and a crazy sense of humour. You begin the game taking control of Greeboo, a little blue guy who looks like he's made of plasticene. Doctor Kvorak introduces himself and dumps Greeboo in the game's hub. With only one avenue of exploration open to you, you take Greeboo through a portal and find yourself on a platform that's part of a game-show set floating in space. Orbiting around the set is a large yellowish planet. Through a series of short (and not-so-short) monologues, which later turn into dialogues with a space chicken, you learn more about the "Doctor" and the rules of his strange game show. He's a god with a mischevious sense of humour, you see, and he's a bit bored, but still all powerful. So he's put together this game show with his collection of weirdly inhabited planets up for destruction. Each stage in the show has a different planet that orbits about it. Depending on how well you complete the stage, you rescue or destroy the planet and all of its inhabitants. [h1]========================================================== ----------------------------------------QUALITY------------------------------------- ==========================================================[/h1] Graphics - Doctor Kvorak's Obliteration Game supports VR hardware, but I don't have any, so I'm only able to review the non-VR version. The character graphics are quite nice in an 'old-skool' raytracing sort of way, with plasticene-type models for the characters and shiny textures. Animations are quite nice, but I notice that the player character models have clipping issues where they intersect with level geometry, particularly when falling over. The level graphics look less sophisticated, with each stage made out of repeated tiles of various sorts, with relatively simple textures and effects. Static and dynamic lighting is good, but the dynamic shadows for the characters are very pixelated, to the point where they're actually distracting in some situations. There's a collection of graphics detail settings, together with full-screen/windowed mode toggle and resolution setting, but no vsync! I can hear my video card fan trying to levitate the PC. Sound - The game features multiple music styles, all of them are electronic. The title track and some of the in-game music reminds me very much of a 1980s synthesiser tune, while the next track I heard sounded like a modern progressive house tune. The music suits the game well, though can get a bit repetitive after a while. Sound effects are a bit weak, but do their job. Volume normalisation is pretty good, though the "thump" and "ow" sounds when you fall and hit the floor are a bit loud, as well as being slightly unsynchronised with the animations. The game features speech. This is mostly monologues from Doctor Kvorak, who sounds professionally acted, albeit with a hilarious accent. There's a space chicken who pops in frequently, too, who is rather more annoying to listen to. Gameplay - Doctor Kvorak is a physics-based 3D puzzle platformer. You walk along various platforms, standing on switches or moving blocks to change components of the level: open doors, or raise or lower stairs or platforms, for example. Your options for controlling Greebo (and later, Mikmak and Tiktok) are fairly limited: move, jump, or interact with various objects in the stage. There's no tutorial provided at all, and the control help is strangely only available from the main menu, but it doesn't take long to get the hang of the basics. The game comprises 15 stages, each with a different planet to destroy or save. The first level has you collecting cheese and rescuing (or melting) the cheesey inhabitants of a big yellowish planet. The second progresses to a green slime planet, and so on. Each of the early stages, at least, introduces a new platform puzzle type or two, but they're mostly variants of the same thing: moving boxes onto floor switches. Within each stage are 10 'saviour stones'. These fit together to cover a little 3D replica of the stage's planet. Collect them all and finish the stage and the planet is saved. Finish the stage without collecting them all and the planet is doomed. It doesn't actually matter which you do in order to progress, but I felt rather bad when I burned the poor little slime creatures to a crisp on my first try. You can always go back and replay a stage, but bear in mind that there is no intra-stage saving available, so make sure you have the time available to play through the whole thing. Each stage also has 50 other collectibles that represent the inhabitants of the stage's planet: cheese in the first level, slime in the second, and so on. I'm not sure of the relevance of these, since you advance to the next level regardless of whether you've managed to collect them all. The final type of collectible is completely irrelevant to progression, but there are some achievements related to it: wardrobe items. Each alien can be decked out with hats, accessory items, and clothes or skin changes. My favourite so far, though I collected it quite early on, is the see-through skin! The game has some niggly issues. In a physics-based platform puzzler you ideally want the physics to be spot on. This game does't quite nail it; I've seen a few weird collisions between physics objects that don't react like they should and I've managed to get boxes that I'm pushing stuck or colliding with sections of floor that should be flat. Being unable to jump against level geometry is a bit weird, too -- I've found that sometimes a step back is required to actually get into the air. The other issues I encountered are related to the game's controls. The store page claims full controller support, but it appears that you need a mouse to be able to navigate some of the menus properly. The controls are quite odd to use, too, with a controller definitely being recommended for better control of your character in the game, but the mouse being FAR better to use for camera controls. I ended up playing mostly with a controller, but not bothering to try to position the camera unless I couldn't see anything of what was going on. The "ow" animation is a bit slow and annoying, too. It should be much faster, or interruptible. [h1]========================================================== -------------------------------------PROS & CONS------------------------------------ ==========================================================[/h1] Pros: + Doctor Kvorak is great + Good music + Excellent grammar! + Steam Achievements + VR support, but not required Cons: - The physics can be a bit wonky - No mid-level saves - Repetitive puzzles - Control issues - No vsync [h1]========================================================== --------------------------------------CONCLUSION----------------------------------- ==========================================================[/h1] Doctor Kvorak's Obliteration Game is a reasonably solid entry in the puzzle-platform genre, but the puzzles are quite repetitive and, in non-VR mode, camera control is not fun. It has a few niggly issues that prevent it from being a true classic, but anyone with a sense of humour who's in the mood for some basic platforming puzzles should find quite a few hours' enjoyment here. [h1]6/10[/h1] [code]For more recommendations by LL's Game Giveaways and Reviews on quality indie games or ones with high potential follow our group curations [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/10405952/]here[/url]![/code]