Review | Lair of the Clockwork God
On the surface, Lair of the Clockwork God may seem like any other indie game you may have played in the past decade, it's a 2D pixelated platformer featuring a cast of characters designed to trigger your nostalgia senses. They’ll be familiar to anyone who's played the free adventure game Ben There, Dan That, from Five Size Games, or it’s follow-up Time Gentlemen, Please! However, this standalone platformer spinoff is deviously ambitious, Ben Ward and Dan Marshall, the main creative forces on those projects, have lent their names to this 90s-inspired point-and-click-adventure crossed with a VVVVVV-esque platformer This results in a game that provides constant and loving homage to the age of shareware games, but also creates a unique form of interaction between characters and gameplay styles from different (console) generations.
Finally I can play video games and get away from it all… Oh good, fake twitter.
The way this plays out is that Ben can interact with items and create new tools using random pickups found in the environment, whilst Dan pirouettes over spikes and activates buttons to help Ben progress without having to demean himself to modern indie game stereotypes. Whilst using the concept of merging game genres, Lair of the Clockwork God stays true to its roots by adding silly British humor to every situation in the game. The best interactions come from dialogue quips in unsuitable situations, and as the game's central theme revolves around the apocalypse and emotional states, there's lots of inappropriate fun to be had.
For those worried about constant immature wisecracks, Lair of the Clockwork God is a lot more than just a Deadpool rip-off. I would say that it’s more of a ‘love letter to the genre’, well multiple genres in fact. Jokes are multifaceted and almost every gag relates to game development, publishing and the state of the games industry, which, for a 12-hour campaign, is no mean feat. The ways in which the game deconstructs its own mechanics, uses ARG storytelling, and the bewildering amount of sub-genres used to frame jokes is a treat for any die-hard retro game fan, and it wouldn't feel out of place next to the more experimental Edinburgh Fringe acts. Also, you can wear a mop on your head throughout the entire adventure, and that’s pretty funny.
But like all humor, it is subjective, whilst I personally loved interacting with every item to hear all the one-liners, it may alienate players that aren’t as familiar with Xbox Live’s indie darlings or modern British politics, but I’m sure there’s a lot for anyone who has has a passing interest in games to giggle about. What I’m most impressed with, aside from all the genre swapping, is how well it handles the raunchier side of comedy. One scenario, in particular, contains a “self-pleasure booth”, a boy wearing pink and commentary on the struggles of modern puberty, all from the perspective of the has-been heroes. The lazy joke setups are ripe for the picking, but the protagonist-developers grow from their experiences of trying to understand others and what it means to be accepted at an insecure period in someone’s life.
Ben There, Dan That originally released as a freeware title created in Adventure Game Studio, this made it feel like a slight modernisation of older Lucasarts’ and Sierra’s adventure games While Lair of the Clockwork God feels like more of a modern revival of the franchise, which has been dormant for over 10 years, things are vastly different and it is brimming with new ideas. Due to the limitations of Adventure Game Studio, the Dan and Ben series has always had a rather amateurish, but charming art style, however with the addition of stylised backgrounds, detailed assets and lighting, this fresh new take looks better than ever, utilising Unity’s modern conveniences without sacrificing the appeal of those original titles.
Glad to see 2020 is going about as well in our escapism as real life.
Lair of the Clockwork God also has a few thematic differences to explore, the last two titles in the series explored the mundane life of two point-and-click-adventure game characters commenting their way through absurdist adventures. These were games that the developers had clearly grown up with, but in 2009, the genre was on its dying legs. Ben There, Dan That’s artistic, slightly ironic, take on the formula proved successful enough at the time to spawn a commercial follow up, Time Gentlemen, Please, which got a Steam release (back when the service was curated). They made enough revenue though this to start Size Five, Dan Marshall’s indie game studio, that has produced a steampunk stealth title, The Swindle and the arcade football game with deadly undertones, Behold the Kickmen. While point-and-clicks tend to still struggle at market, Clockwork God fully utilises the skills that Size Five has developed through the years to make a sequel that just wasn't possible in the Adventure Game Studio days, full of new mechanics and ideas.
Must go pretty swift, I guess.
Unfortunately, whilst there have been a plethora of refinements to this entry in the series, the switch port demonstrates a key problem that ambitious games from low budget development teams tend to, poor optimisation. Lair of the Clockwork God hasn’t received an update since prerelease, which showcased a few prominent bugs. Some of these were admittedly charming, in a Deadly Premonition sort of way (one instance caused some levels to load with the wrong music tracks, making outlandish situations feel even more bizarre). However, the fluctuating frame rate did cause some issues that were much harder to ignore, platforming sections took the most direct hit. As a result, the time between button presses and animations was noticeably slow. I also came across a game-breaking bug at one point that booted me out of the game right before a quicksave.
It’s safe to say that Size Five’s strong fundamentals in adventure game design have once again, for the most part, paid off. Lair of the Clockwork God has one of the funniest scripts of any game I’ve played, and the puzzles draw a fine line between fair and inventive (even if some hints were so vague that a game guide was my only option). Platforming, the biggest change to the Ben and Dan formula, is overall rather well designed, Ben’s lateral thinking problems work in tangent with Dan’s puzzle platforming sections, and with the help of gravity manipulation mechanics, the platforming manages to differentiate the game on its own merits.
The slower-paced puzzle-platforming challenges are tolerable, but the optimisation of some areas that try to emulate faster platforming games such as the classic Sonic titles and Super Meat Boy struggle to keep up. The sluggishness and unfairly demanding response times made platforming the worst part of a game that brilliantly emulates so many others. Whilst playing through a charming adventure game in bed is pretty great, the Switch port has some issues that are no laughing matter. However, the PC version seems to run at a consistent framerate, and the Xbox One edition just has an occasional stutter.
Ben and Dan’s games have been talking about the impending doom of the planet for a little while, but the recurring theme really hit home this year. For indie developers, it’s always a struggle to release games on the horizon of a new console generation, but with the addition of recessions, marches and masks, AAA publishers have been pushing harder than ever to soak up every last bit of news coverage, and self-published games, especially single-player experiences, are having a hard time getting noticed.
Lair of the Clockwork God is not just the funniest game of the year, but quite possibly the decade, and so it's a shame that so many people are going to miss out on one of the most ambitious celebrations of independent gaming in a long time. Don’t let this one pass under your radar.
Review copy provided by Size Five Games and NeonHive.
