H.M.S. Spaceman

H.M.S. Spaceman is a ribald sex comedy, which is not one of my preferred comedy genres. And the first act dragged for me. However, I stayed with the game and slowly started to warm up to it. By the middle of the second act it had grabbed me, and from there on all I could do was hold on for dear life - between laughs, that is. It's kind of like the reaction I had the first time I read A Confederacy of Dunces. I kept thinking "The game is going there? And there?! And there!?!"

Like A Confederacy of Dunces, though, you can sense that there's more to H.M.S. Spaceman than just the outrageous bids for laughs. For one, while the game starts out with the male humans' point of view, it eventually switches to that of the aliens. And these humans are clueless - totally clueless. What you end up with is a lampooning of patriarchy and colonialism, right down to some William Shatner / Star Trek elements.

But it's the rollicking comedy that dominates. The part that made me laugh the hardest was (Spoiler - click to show)when Penumbra is trying to find a song to listen to on the radio. I finally settled on, "I hear you call my name." And then the game slowly gives you the next few lines:

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"And it feels"

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"like"

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"home."

Me: "I think I recognize that. What is it?"

And then: "It's... it's... oh, right!"

So, an alien tentacle creature planning to seduce and deceive some clueless humans is listening to Madonna's "Like a Prayer." I laughed long and hard.

Also, for some reason, (Spoiler - click to show)the whole sex scene told from Penumbra's - the alien tentacle creature's - point of view. Like how she remembers the need for humans to slow down and engage in "the fourth play." Just... wow.

Overall, an outrageously funny sex comedy - but with more going on underneath the surface.