Developer: Vile Monarch
Publisher: Gambitious
Digital Entertainment
Rrp: £1.59 (Gog.com), £1.59 (Steam) and £1.59 (Humblebundle)
Released: 25th October 2016
Available on: Steam, Gog.com and Humblebundle
Played Using: Mouse and Keyboard
Those who have grown up with the internet at their finger tips at a moments notice will be no strangers to ad hominem insults. Hell, its become so pervasive that many people think that insulting someone is the same as making a salient point in a debate. Ever wanted to take a break from all that? Well here’s your chance! Now you can make your own insults without fear of any blowback!
This game is a self-proclaimed Insult-em-up and having played it I have to agree. To be honest I can’t think of any game even vaguely similar to this, the closest I can think of is the insult sword fighting that the Monkey Island games use.
The premise is actually quite simple, you and your opponent take turns to construct insults that will lower your opponents health bar and once they (or you) hit zero the winner is declared.
Each player, be they a human or the computer takes turns to select from several insult components on a board that is in the centre of the screen, once a component is chosen it disappears.
The board in the centre of the screen aren’t the only components that you have to choose from, both you and your opponent have two extras that appear on the bottom left of the screen. You can choose to change those components by sipping your tea although you can only do this once per insult.
If you don’t complete a insult due to a lack of components you take damage, you also take damage if your grammar is bad (as in the sentence makes no grammatical sense i.e; ‘is and’).
Each opponent you face has a weakness, if you can find it creating insults that feature it will cause more damage, this is especially handy if you can include it with an existing combo.
Mentioning the same component (or something similar ie ‘your hat’ and your sense of style’ fall under style) in each insult builds up a combo which will cause more damage. As you can imagine if you use a combo in conjunction with attacking a opponents weakness you can cause a very high amount of damage.
When you start you get to select your character, each of which have their own weaknesses. More will become unlocked as you progress through the tournament mode or meet certain hidden requirements.
If you don’t feel like competing in the tournament and just want a quick insult match you can choose to play against the CPU, join online multiplayer or couch co-op, which I must admit is a real blast.
Its a short game, but for the price it gives quite a lot of enjoyment. Especially for those of you who are fans of Monty Python since the game includes several visual jokes and insult components that reference them.
If this appeals to you perhaps try;
Honestly… I can’t think of anything similar. Try playing Monkey Island and doing the insult sword fighting bit, that’s the closest I’ve got. Sorry.
