It is safe to say that I have never done anything wrong in my life, or at least, that is the mantra I repeated to myself while held at eye level by a fifty-foot-tall law enforcement officer who was decidedly not buying my story. Standing there in the early morning light, caught in the grip of the Colossal Policeman—the official moniker given to this towering authority figure on the game’s Steam page—I tried to offer a reasonable excuse about needing to get to a job. Whether I actually had a job remained entirely unclear to me, but anxiety has a way of making you say whatever is necessary when a cop bigger than a house is scrutinizing your every move.
This is the unsettling reality of Militsioner, an upcoming indie game that immediately subverts traditional open-world expectations. The core premise is as bizarre as it is compelling: you are trapped in a surreal town under the constant, unblinking watch of a giant who could squash you as easily as look at you. The good news is that you are technically free to move about town. The bad news is that you cannot leave. You are convinced of your own innocence, but nobody else is, and the authorities are certainly not going to listen to your explanations. To survive and escape, you have to figure out a way out of this claustrophobic, yet overwhelmingly large, settlement.
The surreal nature of the environment becomes apparent almost immediately. While attempting to navigate the winding streets, I crossed paths with a friendly local who happened to be nothing more than a very large arm hanging out of a window. The question of why everyone else in this town seems to be significantly larger than the player character is just one of many lingering mysteries. This disembodied appendage claimed to be a lawyer, and insisted that the absolute best course of action for my predicament was to skip town entirely. Conveniently enough, this helpful arm just happened to have a train ticket on hand, which they were willing to hand over.
Of course, in a world as strange as Militsioner, nothing comes without a catch. It quickly turned out that the "lawyer’s" generous offer was merely a ploy to lure me into a trap so they could eat me later. Fortunately, if they truly wanted that scheme to succeed, they really should not have left so many loose bricks lying around the premises. One smashed door, pockets loaded down with scavenged bricks, a fake train ticket that genuinely showcased an impressive amount of artistic effort, and some stolen cash later, I found myself back out on the street, trying to figure out how to legitimately secure my departure.
What immediately stands out about Militsioner is the sheer amount of freedom it affords the player to approach situations however they see fit. If I wanted to, I could freely walk up and interact with the Colossal Policeman himself. The giant officer is perpetually hungry and sad, desiring nothing more than a classic donut—fitting behavior for a quintessential policeman archetype. During one encounter, I offered him an apple I had found lying on the ground. While it helped alleviate his depression slightly, it did not entirely quench his desire for a pastry.
Deciding to bypass the giant for the moment, I wandered over to the local train station to try my luck with the ticket vendor, who immediately pegged me for a murderer and refused to be convinced otherwise. The vendor threatened to call the police—a threat that felt somewhat redundant given the sheer physical scale of the officer patrolling the town—prompting me to make a swift exit. Undeterred by this setback, I decided to attempt a brazen break-in at the train station. This plan proceeded smoothly right up until the giant cop noticed the commotion and intervened with a stern warning to vamoose. Admittingly, attempting a break-in in broad daylight was perhaps a bit too ambitious, but options were limited, and tracking down the strange disembodied hands occasionally popping out of sewer grates did not seem like a reliable alternative.
The true beauty of the experience lies in this systemic freedom. Every obstacle can be tackled through multiple avenues. I could have persisted in trying to convince the train station attendant that I was an upstanding citizen and a personal friend of the local law enforcement. That specific diplomatic approach failed, of course, primarily because I did not know the correct answer to the security question the attendant used to test my claims. Alternatively, I could wander into the local pawn shop, liquidate just enough of my miscellaneous inventory to finally afford a vending machine donut, and bring that sweet treat back to the Colossal Policeman.
Executing that pastry delivery fundamentally shifted the dynamic between us. The giant officer was visibly confused yet deeply grateful, altering our relationship entirely. Desperate times call for creative measures, so I even attempted to flirt with him, operating under the logic that maybe a budding romance would keep him from slapping the handcuffs on me. At another point, when he mentioned a desire to listen to some music, I hunted down a guitar and brought it to the shore where he was sitting in the water just outside of town. My intention was to either offer it as a gift or attempt to serenade him and cheer him up. Neither approach worked, leaving the two of us sitting by the water—me holding a musical instrument neither of us could effectively use, and him soaking in the shallows, perfectly encapsulating the underlying melancholy of the setting. It was a bizarre scene, after which I simply took the guitar back to the pawn shop and sold it for parts.
As my demo time began to run low, I formulated a new strategy. I used one of the town’s benches to advance time, waiting until nightfall to attempt another break-in at the station. The logic was simple: perhaps the giant would not catch me if he could not see me in the dark. I still lacked a valid ticket and had no realistic plan for boarding the moving train, but then again, I had not planned on feeding a giant donut to a municipal officer the size of a skyscraper either.
Upon waking from my bench nap, however, I discovered that the entire town had flooded. The water level had already risen to my chest and was continuing to climb at an alarming rate. I used a brick to smash through a locked door, frantically searching for higher ground, but the deluge was relentless until eventually, there was nowhere left to run.
Upon meeting my demise, a menu screen appeared, allowing me to spend points that I had unknowingly accumulated by performing various actions that improved the policeman’s mood throughout my playthrough. It was at that exact moment that the realization set in: Militsioner is structured as a roguelike. It was a clever revelation that reframed the entire experience.
With the limited demo session drawing to a close, my mind immediately raced with thoughts of what I would do differently on the next run. Getting to the pawn shop and securing the donut much faster would be a priority, alongside exploring previously unseen areas of the map. With optimized execution, perhaps I could finally convince the train station attendant that I was acquainted with the Colossal Policeman, or perhaps uncover the deeper mystery behind the mysterious hands inhabiting the sewers. The town itself had initially felt compact, but I quickly realized I hardly knew it at all. It remained a stranger to me, and if I ever hoped to leave its borders, I would have to master its hidden mechanics and secrets.
Yet, lingering questions remained long after putting the controller down. Was my character actually guilty? Why was there a gigantic policeman monitoring this specific town in the first place? What caused the sudden, catastrophic flooding? If anything, playing Militsioner left me with exponentially more questions than answers. But there was one thing I knew for certain: on my next run, I would definitely know where to find a donut.
