Digital Shorts: ‘Her Majesty’s Spiffing’ Review (Nintendo Switch)
In DIGITAL SHORTS we review some of the latest video games that are only available digitally (at least in the UK), in a short-form review format. In this edition we take a look at Her Majesty’s Spiffing, a new point-and-click adventure game now available on the Nintendo Switch.
Point and click adventures, a genre that exploded in the early days of PC gaming yet one that seemingly died out when the first-person shooter was born. Lucasarts made them their own, Maniac Mansion made them mainstream. The genre has stayed alive despite its ups and downs, reborn again during the age of the tablet – the touchscreen controls feeling made for this type of gaming. Which leads us to Her Majesty’s Spiffing…
Originally funded through a Kickstarter campaign, Her Majesy’s Spiffing is a quintessentially British adventure game, featuring what can only be described as stereotypical cliches of British people being “British” – only its set in space and Britain has apparently gone back to the old imperial days of conquest and ventured out on the behest of the Queen to find a new planet to call home. Or as the official synopsis puts it:
Her Majesty’s SPIFFING is a quaint point and click adventure game following the exploits of Captain Frank Lee English and his trusted regional accented colleague, Aled, as they travel through the cosmos in search of new planets to claim for a galactic British Empire.
The early portion of Her Majesty’s Spiffing sees you playing as Capt. English, walking around your spaceship (which looks like a mini crossed with a fighter jet), interacting with your crewmate, objects and parts of the ship in a very old-school fashion: you can examine, interact, talk, or take/use an item. There’s plenty of items to place in your inventory too – many of which may or may not actually be of use further down the line…
Now let me say this, if you can get through this early stage of the game, which feels very much like the game walking modern gamers through point and click gaming, there’s plenty to enjoy about Her Majesy’s Spiffing – especially if you used to love this type of game back in the day. But it is a struggle – the humour is a little to humourless, where the developers think the jokes are funny they are instead facetious, especially when it comes to your crew mate Aled, whose dialogue is so cliched the devs may as well have had him keep a sheep as a lover!
But the games biggest problem? It’s just too damn short, feeling very much like the episodic game promised in the original Kickstarter campaign…
