No-one can escape the long neck of the law.
In Lord Winklebottom Investigates you play as a pipe smoking, monocle wearing, top hatted giraffe, who also happens to be the world’s greatest detective. This giraffe is, of course, the titular Lord Winklebottom. Assisted by his faithful hippopotamus companion, Dr Frumple, Lord Winklebottom is about to tackle his greatest case to date.
If that synopsis doesn’t perk your interest in this game, then I don’t know what else to write.
The demo I played at EGX covers the first step in Lord Winklebottom’s adventure – finding passage to the Isle of Barghest. To achieve this I had to help the local dockhand, a puffin, fix his boat and cause minor chaos at the local pub.
Despite its short length, the demo successfully introduced me to the very British style of humour that can be found in Lord Winklebottom Investigates. Dr Frumple always has a cup of tea in hand, characters are overly polite, even when they’re breaking windows, and seagulls are depicted as being rum drinking pirates.
Lord Winklebottom Investigates stays true to the point and click gameplay formula. Puzzles are solved by finding hints hidden in conversations and gathering as many items as possible, which you can try combining. While I did find myself pondering over one puzzle in particular, I never felt like I had become truly stuck and, hopefully, the same can be said for the full game.
The artstyle for the game is also beautiful, with each character and backdrop having been hand painted. It’s like you’re playing a combination of children’s picture book and a Sherlock Holmes novel.
Lord Winklebottom Investigates is being developed by Charlotte Sutherland at her one woman studio, Cave Monsters. Sutherland has previously worked for Rare, EA, Tt Games and Sumo Digital. It will be released in May 2020 on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and on Steam for PC and Mac OS.
