I Want to Play the Villain!
The cast is also a puzzle
I Want to Play the Villain! transforms a theatrical performance into a casting puzzle. Its demo barely lasts thirty minutes, but it is enough to show an idea that is easy to understand and has room to grow.
Introduction
I Want to Play the Villain! It starts from a fairly simple idea: turning a theatrical performance into a small puzzle. Instead of worrying about memorizing lines or going on stage, our job is to place each actor in the right role, taking into account their tastes, ambitions, fears and relationships with the rest of the cast. A curious premise that works especially well as a basis for a logic game.
The demo available on Steam is very short. In approximately 30 minutes we have been able to complete all the available levels, although it is enough to understand how its proposal works.
A cast that works like a puzzle
Each scenario presents a play with several characters and a series of conditions that we must meet. One actor may want to play a certain role, another may prefer to share a scene with a specific partner, and someone may directly refuse to participate under certain circumstances. From there it is time to reorganize the cast, change roles or modify some elements of the representation until all the pieces fit together.
The trick is that the solutions are not presented directly. We have to read each character’s preferences and find a combination that satisfies the different conditions. It is an easy system to understand from the first moment and allows you to solve the first puzzles quite quickly, although the structure itself leaves room to introduce much more elaborate situations in the full game.
Its casual and colorful presentation also helps, very much in line with the theatrical theme. The characters have easily recognizable designs and everything is designed so that we can quickly identify what is happening on stage, something especially important in a title where a good part of the experience consists of rearranging elements and checking the result.
An idea with room to grow
For now, the main question is precisely how far he will be able to take this mechanic. The demo ends just as some interesting variations begin to appear, so we will have to see if the full game manages to introduce enough new characters, rules and situations to prevent the concept from becoming repetitive. The developers promise chapters with different settings, characters and mechanics, as well as modular stories capable of producing different representations.
I Want to Play the Villain! leaves a pleasant first impression. It doesn’t take much time to explain its rules and its combination of theater and logic puzzles has its own personality. Its approximately thirty minutes of demo know little, but they serve perfectly to check if its particular cast of actors and villains manages to find a place on our wish list.
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