A copy of Her Majesty’s SPIFFING was supplied for review by Billy Goat Entertainment.

Not so long ago, in a galaxy not too far away….

The Story

The Queen of England has had enough of the bureaucracy and corruptness of her politicians. Banishing Parliament, the Queen and has brought the U.K. back under her control. In an attempt to regain the respect and admiration of past generations, old Queeny decides that Great Britain should look to the stars to find its greatness. Setting up the SPIFFING (Special Planetary Investigative Force For Inhabiting New Galaxies) initiative, the Queen blasts Big Ben into the stratosphere along with the HMSS Imperialise; a unique mix or rocket and Mini Cooper.

The game takes place onboard the Imperialise. You play as Frank Lee English, a typical, middle-class, stiff-upper-lipped Englishman. Frank and his subordinate, Aled Jones, are searching the galaxy for a suitable planet for the newest colony of the British Empire. However, whilst Aled takes a tea break, Frank is left to man the controls of the Imperialise. Not really knowing what to do, but being very British, Frank ‘has a go of it’ and does his best to fly the ship. This results in the mission hitting a bit of a road bump and some damage being caused to the Imperialise. Finally repairing the ship, Frank and Aled find a planet to colonise. Nevertheless, when they land they realise they’re not the only nation trying to re-establish past glories. An ancient enemy is waiting for them. Frank must think cunningly to oust the opposition from Britain’s newest claim.

The Game

Her Majesty’s SPIFFING’s (HMS) gameplay is a mix of puzzle and point-and-click adventure. The player manoeuvres Frank around the Imperialise and can interact with a variety of objects in different ways. Typical of the genre, he can: examine, look, pick up, talk to, combine and activate different objects to complete puzzles and fulfil objectives. Unlike most point-and-click adventures I’ve played, I found HMS to be very intuitive and easy to understand. With the options above, I was able to work out and solve the puzzles on my own. Mostly, I went around observing and picking up everything I could knowing that I would probably need it later in the game. Some objects seemed random, however, when presented with the puzzle for that specific object, I always could put two and two together to work out the solution.

An example of this is when Frank needs to go to the lower levels of the ship. Unfortunately, he is too bulky to fit through the hatch that is the entrance to the lower deck. When looking through my inventory I concluded that the best object for the solution would be washing-up liquid, as it could help Frank slide through the hatch. I appreciate that BillyGoat made puzzles that were logical. I hate it when point-and-click adventure games make obtuse puzzles. This is because I’m not that clever and always have to google the wiki to work them out. Don’t get me wrong, the puzzles aren’t easy, and if you miss an item you need to back track to complete the puzzles. Nevertheless, I think the game does a good job of pointing the player to the solution, providing tips through witty dialogue.

Recently I’ve been playing indie games, from quite big developers, that look and run great in docked mode on the Switch. However, in handheld they are a laggy mess. I’m happy to say that HMS is not one of those indie games. This game runs flawlessly in handheld mode and on the TV, looking fantastic on both. Just because it’s a small team and a port from other console does not mean games on the Switch should be a lesser version. HMS and BillyGoat are a great example of what indie developers should aspire to be on the Switch.

Art, Music and Writing

As a British person, I really appreciate the writing in this game. For me it was clever, witty, self aware and quintessentially British. It makes a stark difference to hear British humour in a video game and I think BillyGoat nailed it in HMS. It reminds me of Monty Python, with its play on British stereotypes and our rivalry with the French. The game also makes an interesting commentary of British patriotism. How British people look to past glories to validate our position in world politics in the 21st Century. It is extremely clever and I can’t applaud the writer, William Barr, enough. He even made changes to the game after Brexit, to make the writing more current. Some people may not like the writing style or humour because it is so British, but I was laughing out loud at some of the one liners!

In addition, I think this game looks great! Its cartoony style and bold colours fit perfectly with the over-the-top humour. The games lighting is extremely well done. From the red and green flashing lights of the Imperialise’s decks, or the warm orange from the planet’s sun, Frank is always lit perfectly. In addition, though it is an indie game, the developers did not miss out any detail when designing the art. Firstly, I think the SPIFFING logo looks great. I’d love a striker or t-shirt of it in real life; it looks that cool! Secondly, the Toxic Frogs album cover is a great easter egg. Inspired by the Iron Maidon ‘The Trooper’ cover, this small detail in the game made me smile when I saw it! The Toxic Frog track is also pretty cool, as well as the track over the credits. But other than that I don’t think the music was anything to write home about in HMS.

Finally, I was surprised that HMS is fully voice acted. For a small team to develop a small game that is well written, looks good, runs great AND is fully voice acted, is pretty impressive. I thought Frank’s actor nailed his character. However, Aled’s wasn’t too impressive. At times he could be annoying, sounding like BillyGoat found ‘just some Welsh guy’ to play him.

Problems

As I said above, the game ran flawlessly on the Switch, however, I did experience one or two bugs. These both came at the very end of the game. The first was an issue accessing my inventory. In the final scene by the French ship, I could not select, equip or examine anything in my inventory. This was extremely frustrating as the final scene of the game is a sequence of puzzles that requires you to access your inventory numerous times. This meant after every part of the sequence I would have to run back to my ship, select the item I needed, run back, and start the next part of the sequence. As you can imagine, doing this 4 or 5 times was quite annoying.

To note- A few days after I beat the game and reviewed it, BillyGoat’s PR Manager reached out to me. He assured me that the developers knew about the bug I wrote about above and that it would be fixed before the game’s release on 1st February.

Secondly, the final scene in the game kept glitching on me, causing the game to freeze on the scene below. I worked out that this could have been caused by me and how I fulfilled the final task of the game. However, there was nothing in the game telling me I’d done something wrong, so I assume that how I completed the task was ok. Luckily, the game autosaves just before this final task so you can reload it and try again. However, the game still froze two more times. On my fourth try, I did the puzzle a different (and admittingly a simpler) way and the final cut scene finally cut in so i could finish the game. I hope BillyGoat can fix these two problems that seemed to be linked, as it was the only frustration I experience in this otherwise well made game.

Some people may complain that HMS is too short as it can be beaten in about two hours. I myself had no problem with this as I have to play so many games that to be honest, the shorter they are the better. Plus I was given this game to review so didn’t pay the €9.99 price tag for it. I can understand why some people may not want to pay €9.99 for a two hour experience, but think of it this way; HMS is cheaper than a ticket for a two hour long movie. I would much rather pay for this funny, well written and mostly well made game than go and see a movie (unless it’s Star Wars).

Summary

To conclude, Her Majesty’s SPIFFING is a fantastic indie game on the Nintendo Switch and compared to its competitors on the platform is punching way above its weight! The writing is clever and funny, the art is well made and the game runs flawlessly on the Switch. HMS is great for both new and experienced point-and-click adventure players, as the puzzles are logical and intuitive. Unfortunately, the bugs did spoil my experience of the game I little bit, but hopefully your version won’t experience them. I hope the game sells well on the Switch so we can see more releases from Billy Goat Entertainment, so go and buy this game!

I give Her Majesty’s SPIFFING by Billy Goat Entertainment my rating of

Have you played Her Majesty’s SPIFFING? If so what did you think of it? Let me know over onTwitter or over on our Discord Server.