Lair of the Clockwork God review – a very British genre mashup

In a bygone era, when our attention spans could outlast a TikTok video, point-and-click adventure games from developers such as Sierra Online and LucasArts brought intrigue, excitement and daft jokes to our new beige personal computers. These were mentally taxing, longform experiences that often provided the sharpest wit, the most endearing characters, and tales that endured endured long after the credits scrolled. Lair of the Clockwork God was always going to need to find a new take on an old and marginalised genre. But it succeeds in doing so, by cross-pollinating with platforming – and a particularly demanding type of platforming at that. If that sounds like a recipe for seething at your screen through a clenched jaw, it's testament to writer-designers Dan Marshall and Ben Ward that far more often it's a vessel for inventive puzzles and a distinctive brand of wry observational humour about game design.