Igor: Objective Uikokahonia is a 1994 graphic adventure game developed by the Spanish company Pendulo Studios and published by DROsoft. The game tells the story of Igor Parker, a university student in love with a classmate named Laura Wright. Hoping to win her affection, Igor surmounts a series of obstacles in an effort to join her on a field trip to the island paradise of Uikokahonia. The player assumes the role of Igor and navigates the campus while collecting items, solving puzzles and conversing with non-player characters.
Igor entered development in 1993, as a part-time project between friends Ramón Hernáez, Rafael Latiegui, Felipe Gómez Pinilla and Miguel Angel Ramos. All four were fans of adventure games, and they hoped to emulate existing titles in the genre. Part of their motivation derived from the historic nature of Igor, since a graphic adventure game of its type had never been developed in Spain. After securing a publishing deal, the team incorporated as Pendulo Studios and hired freelancers for the game's music and backgrounds. Spain's weak game industry hampered production: Pendulo's working conditions were poor, and Igor was made on a low budget below 400,000 pesetas. The game was completed after roughly nine months.
In Spain, Igor received positive reviews from magazines such as Super PC and Micromanía. It sold well enough to encourage Pendulo to pursue game development as a profession, although the company was disappointed by the sales of the English localization. Since its release, Igor has been cited as a landmark Spanish game, as an important stepping stone for Spanish game development and as an inspiration for other Spanish companies to create graphic adventures. It was officially released as freeware in 2007. With Igor behind it, Pendulo proceeded to become a highly regarded developer in Spain via titles such as Hollywood Monsters and Runaway: A Road Adventure. By 2019, it was Spain's longest-running game development studio.
Gameplay and plot
Igor: Objective Uikokahonia is a graphic adventure game controlled with a point-and-click interface, in a style that has been compared to LucasArts adventure games. Gameplay involves navigating the game world, conversing with non-player characters, solving puzzles and gathering and using items. The player interacts via a mouse by selecting actions, such as "Look" or "Take", from a list in the lower part of the screen. These actions may then be performed on hot spots in the game world. Below the action list is the player's inventory, which stores items for later use. During conversations with other characters, the inventory is replaced by dialogue options. Igor does not contain character death or dead-end states: the player may attempt any action without risking a game over.
The game begins as Igor Parker, a university student, overhears his crush Laura Wright speaking with the campus playboy, Philip Goolash. In the conversation, Igor learns that Laura is going with the Biology class on a field trip to the island paradise of Uikokahonia. Philip, who is infatuated with Laura, opts to join her. Igor believes that the trip is his own opportunity to get closer to Laura and plans to come along, with the goal of defeating his rival. However, Igor is not enrolled in Biology and cannot afford the admission fee for the field trip. As a third requirement, he must also present a final project for the semester. Igor begins by distracting the dean's secretary and secretly writing his name in her files to enroll himself in Biology. He enlists the school nerd, Harrison, to do his Biology schoolwork in exchange for a blind date with a girl on campus. To pay for the trip, Igor tracks down a statue recently stolen from a museum by the art thief Ricky the Weasel, and turns it over to the police for reward money. While carrying out these tasks, Igor several times runs into Laura, who consistently sees him performing what appear to be good deeds.
Igor's plans go awry when the Biology professor catches him cheating on his final exam, and Igor is barred from the field trip to Uikokahonia. However, he is able to improvise by smuggling himself in a crate bound for the island, and he parachutes down to Uikokahonia. In the process, he loses most of the items from his inventory, including a boomerang. He reaches Uikokahonia to find Philip acting aggressively toward Laura, and Igor is nearly drawn into a fight, but his boomerang returns and knocks Philip out. His victory and previous actions throughout the game ultimately win Laura over, and the two kiss as the game ends.