Polda, aneb s poctivostí nejdřív pojdeš

Game review

Follow the trail of a mysterious kidnapping in the village of Lupany. You have a uniform and a gun, you are not exactly a saint, so take the law into your own hands. This detective comedy parody is narrated by leading Czech comedians - starring Luděk Sobota, Jiří Lábus, Petr Nárožný and others. For its time, the game contained a large number of characters, an unusual amount of details, detailed animations, logical plots, more than 250 high-quality sounds, a story with quirky humor.

Polda, aneb S poctivostí nejdřív pojdeš, released in 1998, is a classic DOS adventure game that became a hit in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The game follows the adventures of a somewhat clumsy but endearing police officer, Pankrác (nicknamed Polda), as he navigates a series of humorous and sometimes bizarre scenarios. The game is known for its witty dialogue, engaging puzzles, and unique take on police procedural tropes.

This game can be described as ordinary policeman on the trail of an extraordinary crime. The work of a police officer is very rewarding, but often underappreciated by people. Everyone looks down on them a bit. Just remember how many jokes have already been made about police officers and how many more there will surely be. But the policeman should be the one who maintains order, who exposes himself to daily danger and who searches for all kinds of mobsters, thieves, murderers and all "bad" people who break the law in any way. Perhaps the underappreciation of the policeman arises precisely from ignorance of his work. Few people know how a search is conducted. We don't know what effort the policeman puts into his work and how much energy it costs him. And you can get to know exactly such a search and the work of a police officer in the Czech adventure game Polda.

Polda is the debut work of the Sleep team, which was released under the banner of Zima Software. The main character, Pankrác, whom you control in the game, is not a journalist, or any hero saving the world, or an expert on paranormal phenomena, but a fairly ordinary defender of the law in a decent police uniform. Of course, he is not a tough cop who commands respect, but he is a completely ordinary person who has not achieved any major successes at work (in fact, he has not solved a single case yet). Nevertheless, Pankrác is entrusted with another case and with your help he can correct this unflattering balance. Pankrác is entrusted with the case of a mysterious kidnapping in the small village of Lupany. Here, under very strange circumstances, two citizens, Jan and Marie, disappeared. Pankrác is not a god-fearing saint, so it is not surprising that he uses quite interesting but effective methods in his search ("...there will be peace here, or my weapon will fail!":-)).

Polda a pure 2D adventure, where a large number of conversations with about 30 characters await you. And exactly the dialogues are what I liked the most about Pold. The writers presented their sense of humor as best they could. Trust me, Polda will make you laugh from start to finish. It's not just Pankrác's interesting methods of investigation and problem solving, but especially the dialogues, which together are a lot of fun. Especially the end of the whole story is very original and completely unexpected. There are also a lot of topics to talk about in the interviews, which will not help you in your search, but you will have a wonderful time with them. There are a lot of such fun little things in the game, for example various flyers, or advertisements in newspapers and much more. In the game, traditionally, as is the case in adventure games of this type, you collect all kinds of objects, with which you then chatter in all sorts of ways. The overall difficulty is not exactly one of the easiest, so you'll get into trouble at times.

Polda is a completely classic Czech adventure game with typically Czech humor, the hints of which this time were taken away by the Czech police. It's a game with a very humorous story, funny tasks and unrivaled dubbing, but it's also quite short, insanely illogical, and its technical processing doesn't stand out either. Nevertheless, I recommend it to everyone.