Lair of the Clockwork God

Lair of the Clockwork God is a deliberate genre mashup — half classic LucasArts-style point-and-click adventure, half modern indie platformer, with the two combined into a single game that requires switching between both characters and using their abilities together. The premise is that all the apocalypses are happening at the same time, and only by combining adventure-game puzzle-solving with platformer traversal can you teach an old computer about feelings and stop them.

Ben is the adventurer, stuck firmly in the 90s, happiest combining junk items into satisfying puzzle solutions. Dan is the platformer character, hip and sensitive, with a different-colored nose and aspirations to be the next big indie hit. You solve point-and-click puzzles as Ben to create unique upgrades for Dan, then jump and run as Dan to unlock new platforming areas that reveal new puzzles for Ben. The two halves feed each other across the campaign.

The game is a standalone Dan and Ben Adventure — you don't need to have played Ben There, Dan That! or Time Gentlemen, Please! to follow it. The original plot is not referenced, the characters are re-introduced expertly, and everything works on its own terms. Size Five Games' writing carries the same dry humor the studio has been refining across all their projects, and the genre-merge premise is executed seriously rather than as a one-joke gimmick.