Games review: Her Majesty's Spiffing

Her Majesty's Spiffing might not sound like a great title but when I first saw the game appear in the Xbox store listing, the trailer made me want to play it,

I was impressed.

The storyline involves events in the summer of 2016 (cough, Brexit) which means that Her the Queen has had enough of the government and decided it's time to take back control. On her agenda is expanding the British empire and take to space.

Tasked with searching the cosmos for an inhabitable planet to colonise, the protagonist Frank Lee English and his trusty side-kick Aled are on hand to locate a suitable location.

After a brief introduction, Big Ben (which we've always known is secretly a large space-venturing rocket), propels the small ship skywards, and you take control of Frank as you enter space.

First on the list is a good old-fashioned cup of Early Grey tea. Once you located Frank's cup, emblazoned with the Union Flag and Aled's Welsh dragon mugs, you work your way back through the ship to deliver your freshly brewed beverages.

HM Spiffing is labelled as a comedy 3D space-themed adventure game. It exceeded its Kickstarter target of £30,000 by £3,000, which allowed Belfast-based developers BillyGoat Entertainment to develop the product.

I'm incredibly pleased to say that HM Spiffing left me laughing on numerous occasions, with constant digs at Britain and our beloved traditions. Spiffing certainly isn't afraid to poke fun at itself, sometimes by a direct quote, a discreet innuendo or by touching the fourth wall and interacting with the gamer.

As you manoeuvre around the ship, you'll find controls remain fairly simple. But there where a few hiccups. Collision detection isn't the best, spaces that look easy enough to pass are blocked by an invisible wall.

Moving around is smooth, and there is a sprint button that makes traversing the rooms even more enjoyable. You can quick action with A, and the same to examine with X, but holding down A pulls up the wheel allowing you to talk, use, examine or combine, which gives you the chance to easily combine whatever item is equipped.

It's an effective control system that makes a point and click adventure feel much more fluid, and a small step towards a third person adventure rather than a search and discover puzzler.

It's safe to say British gamers will enjoy HM Spiffing considerably more than others because they'll instantly 'get' the vast majority of the jokes.

There's no denying that there's some fantastic voice work. There are plenty of subtle effects, background noise and ambience, but the real highlight is the voice acting and the way it all carries through to the animation, which is very impressive.

With some well-made, sharp and interesting textures, there's a decent level of detail which will make you want to explore every corner for the next British innuendo, but you'll never feel like an over-populated screen has made you miss something important.

Her Majesty's Spiffing is a very impressive package, but I'm sure most people will struggle to fill much more than an evening with it. But while it might not have the length of some adventure games, it's certainly on par with the quality of some of the best out there. I found Spiffing funnier than much of Monkey Island, and the tongue-in-cheek charm and British sarcasm only made it better.

Bottom Line

Her Majesty's Spiffing has been a fantastic surprise. Small but sweet, it's some of the best British humour I've seen packaged into a game, and a good point-and-click venture.