I’d love for the ‘Funded by UK Government’ claim on the Parliament of Hell demo title screen to be true. If some of my tax quids are going to be spent financing video game development then the games in question really need to be as amusing, handsome, sharply written, and steeped in obscure British history as this one.
Inspired by a real Eighteenth Century figure – Gothic novelist/dramatist and MP Matthew Gregory Lewis – Parliament of Hell casts you as a benighted backbencher with a penchant for penning spooky literature and propositioning Byronesque blokes. Lewis is bored stiff by his Parliamentary duties and will do absolutely anything to escape the stuffy/sulphurous confines of Westminster.
Cue lots of isometric exploration, puzzles aplenty, and numerous encounters with period bigwigs such as Earl Grey and Ann Radcliffe.
Baudelaire Welch’s dialogue is tack-sharp, and the visuals produced by this band of pixel artists delightful. Crafting subtle political satire in an age when real-life politics feels like unsubtle satire, is a fine art. Perfect Crime Games make it look easy.
The rotten borough of Old Sarum, the story of the Star Chamber, Byron’s preferred tipple… the game’s wry conversations and Knight Loric spaces are littered with juicy nuggets of historical trivia too.
My earliest gaming memory is head over heels on my dad’s Amstrad. This brings happy flash backs!