Her Majesty’s SPIFFING – PC Review

Genre: Point-and-Click Adventure Puzzle Humor
Developer: Billy Goat Entertainment Ltd
Publisher: Billy Goat Entertainment Ltd
Release Date: Dec 7, 2016

Her Majesty’s SPIFFING, developed by and published by Billy Goat Entertainment Ltd, is available on Steam for $11.99. The game is a fantastic update to classic point-and-click games such as The Day of the Tentacle or The Longest Journey. Not serious in any sense of the word, the humor is very British and extremely self-deprecating and fun for gamers of any type. It starts from the menu itself where your spoken language choices are “British” or “American” and goes from there. Before I delve into the story, the game is compatible with both mouse/keyboard and controller, and comes with a full set of audio, video and setup options. It has an autosave feature as well as the ability for manual saves.

Onto the game itself. It all starts with an older elegant lady walking the halls of her rather large, rather well-known home in London, followed by two or three eager adorably animated corgis. Yes, I do mean that Lady – the Queen herself. We soon find out that she’s grown tired of global issues in 2016 (a nod to Brexit perhaps?) and has decided to dissolve parliament, take back absolute control, and launch Big Ben into space, complete with spaceship attached. Once we get into space, we begin our journey – and what an adventure it is. We have the slightly bumbling Lieutenant Frank Lee English, and his smarter but seemingly bored Welsh sidekick Alem Jones. Being very British, the first task is to, of course, leave the cockpit and make a cuppa. A cup of tea for those non-anglophiles.

Gameplay and graphics are smooth as you explore the ship. Your inventory is easily accessed in the lower left hand corner and allows you to equip, examine or combine items. Any current objectives are listed clearly on the top of the screen next to a clipboard. Moving can be done by either clicking where you want to go, or with WASD. The music was not a distraction, just some light space-age background tunes that matched the pace and feel of the game nicely. The characters break the 4th wall frequently, and are quite open about the fact you are playing a game. One warning poster about the ship advises that if in an emergency, combine as many objects in your inventory until something works. An obvious nod to the random items and pieces one collects in an adventure game and then ends up using unexpectedly at some point along the way. Another nod to humor, you are able to add a game controller to your inventory. This leads the character to remark that he will pick it up but “everyone knows a mouse and keyboard are much better to use”. I laughed out loud at that given the genre of the game. Each object you are able to interact with pulls up a submenu with the option to talk to, examine, use, or add to inventory. The options on objects has fresh dialogue given new circumstances. You can tell the developers and game designers put a lot of time and thought into each of these interactions. I found myself giggling quite frequently as I puttered about the ship.

Without giving too much of the plot away, a spill of tea ends up shutting down all of the ship’s systems and thus begins the task of repairing the ship using many outdated pc parts, batteries and a paper clip, of course. Once the ship is fixed, greater adventure awaits for our two pilots. As in any adventure and puzzle game worth it’s salt, you’ll spend time moving from area to area, looking for items you can either pick up, or combine with other bits and bobs in your inventory and trying to fix the mess the main character seems to leave in his wake at every turn.
As mentioned previously, the cleverly written dialogue keeps things new, and even when having to revisit a few locations, there are added things to find and do. Being a puzzle game, one will need to be a bit adventurous in their use of items provided and a sharp imagination will aid along the way. I did not find the puzzles too complex and only hit upon one or two that required me to revisit and re-click some items for fresh clues. There were some areas of exploration that had several very interesting items that could have added a lot to the storyline, however I understand that as an independent studio, I am sure there were parts of the story they had to leave out. I didn’t find these distracting, they only piqued my interest and hope for more to come from the series. I was pleased to see the game includes Steam Achievements. Something I like to keep track of as I play. Her Majesty’s SPIFFING achievements are all very humorous, fitting in with the overall tone of the game.

I tend to be a bit of a slower gamer as I love to explore the universe a gamer offers and I was able to finish the game in a little over 4 hours. It felt certainly as if there is more to be told of this story and after digging a bit, I found that the developers would like to produce sequels at some point. However, even if they do not, I find the puzzles and laughs I enjoyed while playing were plenty and am going to go back in for a second run. Perhaps I’ll even choose “American” as my language this time around.

The bottom line is, if you are a fan of classic-style point-and-click adventure games (think The Dig or Grim Fandango) and enjoy a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor, then you may want to consider picking up Her Majesty’s SPIFFING on Steam. A truly classic adventure/puzzle game, a genre one does not see too much these days. I greatly enjoyed my time spent with Lieutenant English and Sub-Lieutenant Jones on the adventure and only wish it had lasted longer. The game price of $11.99 USD on Steam seems fair given it is about the cost of a movie ticket, yet I played for over 4 hours and as mentioned, am going to hop in for a second go to get the achievements I missed.

Pros:

• Steam achievements
• Lovely animation
• Fantastic writing
• Smooth menus
• Manual saves

Cons:

• Length of game
• Cliffhanger ending
• Some storylines not fleshed out

Flipfloppie gives Her Majesty’s SPIFFING a Drastik Measure of 8.0 out of 10 (80)