Edgar – Bokbok in Boulzac is a delightfully absurd game about a crackpot hermit and his beloved chicken traveling to the big city. It only gets weirder from there.
Type: Single-player
Genre: Adventure, Point and Click
Developer: La Poule Noire
Publisher: La Poule Noire
Release date: 26 February, 2020
Intro
Edgar – Bokbok in Boulzac (We’ll call it Bokbok for short) is an indie adventure game that’s completely absurd from start to finish. We’ll get into why that is shortly but if you’re a fan of adventure games do read on because it’s quite the wild game, to say the least.
Story
The main character is a crackpot hermit named Edgar who lives in the middle of the forest and is overly obsessed with Squash. He is accompanied by his beloved chicken named Precious whom he also communicates with frequently. The chicken is also only one of 2 characters that are voiced throughout the entire game and all that he says is bok bok in reply to Edgar’s conversations. It’s always an absurd moment when the two of them conversate with each other.
At the start of the game, Edgar’s fly repellant stone melts after a disaster that forces him (and his chicken) to travel to the local city of Boulzak. Here he finds himself wrapped up in a plot to control the populace using pendants and it’s up to him to bumble his way around the village to save everyone. The entire plot of this game is absurd, but it’s the good kind of absurd because it’s honestly very entertaining.
Gameplay
Bokbok’s gameplay is pretty standard for adventure games but it doesn’t utilize a point and click interface. Instead, you use the WASD keys to move around and the keyboard to interact with everything. I recommend using a controller to play it as it controls better with one.
Much of the game mostly revolves around interacting with the townsfolk to progress through the game. The “puzzles” are immensely easy to figure out as well, and largely only require you to converse with the correct people to acquire the item required then turn it into the “quest” giver. Outside of that, there aren’t any logic puzzles that you’ll encounter so progression was quick and easy. Because of this, I recommend this one more for new players than veterans, that is unless you enjoy completely absurd stories.
To Be Improved
There were a couple of things that I noticed that could be improved upon while I was playing through the game. The first was the random slow down when achievements are unlocked and when you enter a new area for the first time. I also noticed one or two spelling and grammar mistakes but that was it so localization did a good job there. Outside of that, the game was solid and I never ran into any game-breaking bugs during my playthrough.
Verdict
Overall, even though Bokbok didn’t feature any voice acting, I found the game to be quite entertaining. I also wound up laughing out loud a couple of times and any game that can make me laugh is a winner in my book. The art style, while simple, fits the game perfectly, and it was a delightfully absurd story that had me saying “WTF” throughout. Props to the devs for making such an entertaining game, it’ll likely be a while before I get to experience something so tastefully absurd again. Until next time!
