Lair of the Clockwork God (2020)

I'm SO GLAD I picked this up. After getting tired of 'poignant' indie games and walking simulators (I think Maquette was the nail in the coffin for me... just stop!!!), this was a much needed breath of fresh air. I can't remember the last time I played a game that was really, genuinely funny. I laughed out loud.

It's probably not quite a 5 star game... but it looks great, is put together with real love and affection, is clever and game literate, has some great puzzles... and I fucking love lucasarts games so this was basically made for me. Plus, very British sense of humour. Don't see that too often in videogames and it made it feel even more personal. Well done lads!

Does a game deserve leniency for its flaws if it's aware of them? That's a question I asked myself frequently while playing Lair of the Clockwork God. Its sardonic, early-2000s-webcomic humor, its repetitive puzzle solutions, and its middling platforming are all targets of the protagonists' mockery at one point or another. Often, this breaking of the fourth wall was genuinely funny or surprising. But other times, it felt a bit unearned or handwavy to me.

I enjoyed the game and would encourage fans of classic point-and-click adventures and indie platformers to give it a try, but those moments (along with some performance issues and long load times I experienced on Switch) kept me from enjoying it more.

This already feels like one of 2020's standout games - a genre amalgam that knows how to deliver godly writing like clockwork. It's the funniest, cleverest and dumbest title you'll play all year. Brexit and our COVID-19 measures are going swimmingly, thanks for asking!

It's not as if point-and-clicks haven't been seen since the Lucasarts days. They've even seen something of a resurgence - seeing constant, albeit often under the radar releases or an otherwise bleeding of their influence into existing or emergent genres. Lair of the Clockwork God is more like a straight-up reanimation of the consciousness of 90s point and clicks into one of today's convenient 'walk and click' bodies and it hating every moment of its pained existence. It's joyeous.

The resultant meta-commentary could be tiresome - imprinting implicit criticism on everything from walking simulators, microtransactions, the internet, Twitch/Mixer streams, etc - but it's not. In part because it's written with such professional comedic precision, but also, it's clearly done in the spirit of self-ragging. First rule of comedy - punch up or, preferably, your own face. Lair is not only about aging genres, but also the real-life writing pair, Ben Ward and Dan Marshall who star in the game. That the process of aging, unbeknownst to you, irrevocably contains you in a time capsule as the world keeps spinning is pure comedic tragedy that Lair leverages fantastically.

Every morning.

Lair lives and LIVES by its writing. It straddles the line perfectly between being 'sincere and inspired' and 'absurd and lewd.' The jokes hit at the pace of a British hyperloop. Despite a script of corkers, nothing can beat the joke at its core - that Ben and Dan cling to their respective genres - point and click and platformer - with such fervour that Dan can't interact with anything or anyone and Ben can't be convinced to raise himself an inch off the floor, let alone jump. Such is the basis for a cavalcade of puzzles where the two enable each other's deficiencies. One limited by genre parameters of the past, and the other the current trends of 'emotional platforming.'

What could have been a fairly standard trudge with either genre devotee works out as anything anything but. Whilst I'm eminently cognizant that a few standout moments shouldn't overwhelm my perception of the experience in its entirety, it's hard not to keep coming back to them. Call me a particular fan of their antics with bug lists, an in-game store and coffee. Whilst consistently great, these really do come to mind as puzzling at its most creative and are worth the price of admission alone.

Balking simulator.

Otherwise, Lair offers spectacularly solid 'walk and click' and platforming fares to freely switch between - particularly so when it devises ways of interweaving the two. And making it work! Whilst platforming sections feel like the weaker component (inevitably for being the harder to execute the game feel of), gravity manipulation and a good dose of shooting certainly trend-up Lair in an especially entertaining way. Platforming also contains decent accessibility options otherwise that essentially scrub its presence away if it's the clicking and pointing you're slavering over. It helps that the walk and click UI is the most intuitive and fun to use I've yet seen. It's hardly surprising hopping around isn't quite as entertaining as trying to use your bladder on every interactable.

I don't think I can more appositely capture Lair than to say it's the 'Spec Ops The Line of point and clicks.' Slap that on the box, if you please. Its story is thoroughly fun - seeing you play out themed levels to add emotional components to an ancient computer as the apocalypse(s) rage outside. Not only does it make every section feel refreshingly focused, but it's an excellent excuse to get constantly inside the heads of our protagonists. By the end, these two bastions of humanity feel like fully fleshed-out flesh bags.

If I had to level any criticism Lair's way, it would simply be that despite its more than reasonable length, longer levels seemed to give way to shorter and shorter emotional representations. It felt like it was in a hurry to end! And I suppose I didn't want it to.

You've gotta vet the pet before you pet.

This already feels like one of 2020's standout games - a genre amalgam that knows how to deliver godly writing like clockwork. It's the funniest, cleverest and dumbest title you'll play all year.