PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant – yes, back to the title – is described in the first sentence of its Steam bio as a “cozy” game. I’m suspicious of cozy or cozy games because they’re increasingly being framed as a kind of anti-depressant in the face of a darkening world, but that’s okay because the remaining 17 words in the sentence are: “Manage your planetary defense cannon to fend off an interplanetary invasion from your convenience [cozy] bunker.”
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To offer some quick and dirty characterizations, PVKK is Papers Please, but you get a planetary defense cannon. It’s an escape game, but you get a planetary defense cannon. Come to think of it, I guess a planetary defense cannon can also serve as a kind of anti-depressant in the face of a darkening world – and indeed a means of darkening it further – but it seems a bit more cathartic than some pastel-hued gardening sim. , right? A little more relaxation?
You can see the cannon from the reinforced window of your bunker, a brutal Schwerer Gustav weapon, threatening the sunset over the rocky valley. Armed with this cannon, an unlimited supply of tea spewed by some sort of dieselpunk Star Trek replicator, and a radio’s worth of cheery tunes, you’ll shoot enemy spaceships out of the sky. Realize that PVKK is more than shooting. Your bunker seems to be haunted, perhaps due to feelings of displaced guilt at being a puppet of an autocratic regime whose propaganda news and broadcasts you can watch on the aforementioned TV radio.
Now, the title. Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant, hah. This is the name of the game for a developer who prefers the benefits of digital media, a developer who doesn’t care about Twitter character limits, caption lengths, SEO requirements or the limitations of touch keyboards. The opening acronym should be seen as a gesture of sheer contempt for people who can’t get the word Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant into their heads without plugging in some external RAM.
After perusing this title, it’s no surprise to find that the game’s interface is an inventively mind-boggling maze of MicroProsey analog devices. In order to fire your planetary defense cannon, you have to operate so many dials and wheels and levers and switches and grid displays and lit buttons with notes that are almost too small to read in the cockpit. Mech Engineer players will love this to the point of being incredibly excited, I suspect. Maybe it’s worth being a puppet of an autocratic regime if you can be locked in a dugout with the interface of your wildest dreams and the biggest phallic metaphor your planet’s technology can provide. I guess you apparently have to oil and repair the dash between sessions! Absolute dirt!
Those who aren’t so into the MicroProsey stuff should know that you’ll spend quite a bit of time exploring a bunker that holds secrets about the outside world. “The regime keeps you in the dark, feeding you half-truths and political euphemisms,” the Steam page explains. “Look beyond these deceptions to understand the real situation and follow the demands of the various factions in your own interest. Of course, this is where the escape room puzzles come in. During the dialogue with your superiors, you will also have to make decisions that will affect a number of endings. There’s a lot of intrigue.
PVKK: Planetenverteidigungskanonenkommandant is the work of Bippinbits, who are, oh my god, the developers of Dome Keeper??? It all makes sense now! As if they were parodying their own work. I probably should have put it in the intro – I’ll put it in the title instead. The game does not have a release date yet.