A Definite Maybe--Lair of the Clockwork God

Well, I just finished playing through the indie Lair of the Clockwork God and I'm having a bit of cognitive dissonance about how exactly to write it up.  It is a game that has reviews currently sitting at "overwhelmingly positive" and personally I am not feeling quite that glowing about it.  It's a game that's meant to blend genres--namely point-and-click style adventure games and platformers--and it's also one of those games that wants to have a META sense of humor (games that make fun of games).  I did find myself laughing at a few points, but I also had genuine moments of frustration and confusion where I just wanted to say "eff it" and move on.

Pros:

+ Some of the humor.  There are moments that are genuinely funny and I did find myself laughing.  The game is chock-a-block with gaming related jokes, jabs, and game mechanics.  I personally enjoyed the "feeling old" scenario and found it very relatable and funny.

+ Props for trying something unique.  Ben is the point-and-click character who controls the inventory and who can talk to and interact with objects.  He cannot  jump and walks at a snails pace.  If you want Ben to interact with something one of the first challenges is to figure out how to get him there (this is simplified as you progress in the game).  Dan is the platforming character who can do all the running, jumping, and the majority of the dying.  The gameplay revolves around using Dan to navigate different parts of each scenario and then switching to Ben to help craft items needed or interact to figure out solutions.  It's interesting.

+ The story is not what I expected.  It revolves around Ben and Dan (the main characters) having to upload different emotional experiences into a computer overlord in order for it to regain empathy and stop all the apocalypses that are currently destroying the world.  In order to experience the emotions, the computer sets up constructs based around each emotion.  The emotions really aren't what you'd expect either.

Cons:

- Meta-humor can be a bit much.  I get it...it's a game poking fun at games.  There are some specific parts of the gameplay that for me, were too much.  At one point in the game I found myself stuck at a certain point with no option to advance--the game then kept popping up windows to access the "store."  Me, being someone who avoids microtransactions, continually closed this window.  Then, there was dialogue pointing to the store--so I opened it up to find out that it is a jokey part of the game.  Umm, ok....  Funnily enough, I did see a review on Steam that mentioned how annoying the store window was (apparently this person didn't get the joke) and that the person stopped playing!  I don't want to give too much away, but there are other parts of the story that are also very jokey in nature and that mostly made me frustrated.  It plays a bit like being trolled by the game--some people will find that enjoyable and very clever and some people will not.

- Puzzle solutions can be quite bizarre and difficult to figure out.  This also sort of harkens back to the jokey nature of the game--the point-and-click sections want to point out the arbitrary nature of the old school games--often you would just blindly find a solution by trying literally everything.  But there are points where even after trying everything that you still can't figure it out--yes, there are ways to use dialogue to get hints about what to do, but I still found myself thoroughly stuck at several points.

- I did not enjoy the platforming and I particularly didn't enjoy the sections that utilized the gravity flipping mechanic.  Yep, I get that it's making things more challenging, but it mostly made me feel disoriented and dizzy (I get motion sick somewhat easily and this made my head feel weird).

Recommendation:

Personally, I struggled a bit with this one--toward the end, I just wanted to be done with it.  The humor got a bit obnoxious after awhile and I've always struggled with meta-game humor (I never finished the indie darling Undertale for basically that exact reason).  I think that if you're the kind of gamer who enjoys that specific type of humor that you will be over the moon about LotCG (this is evidenced by the high ratings and overwhelmingly positive reviews).  If you're not, chances are you will feel frustrated and probably a bit annoyed by it.

I don't like to say "not recommended" to almost any game unless it's pretty broken and I do think there are some redeeming qualities in LotCG.  So I guess my final verdict is a cautious "maybe."  If you're the kind of person who enjoyed a game like Undertale--by all means, check it out; you'll probably love it.  If you're someone (like me) who didn't, I would probably opt to skip it.