Oh...Sir!! The Insult Simulator

Editor's Notes

Steam PC version reviewed.

Introduction

'Oh...Sir!! The Insult Simulator' is from Polish studio Vile Monarch, which also worked on 'Crush Your Enemies'. The first version was created in 42 hours at an Artifex Mundi-hosted game jam.

The Game Itself: Our Reviewer's Take

'Oh Sir!' was inspired by the Monty Python 'Dead Parrot' sketch, in which a man enters a pet shop to demand a refund for the dead parrot he was given. The pet salesman proceeds to explain away the parrot's lack of activity as "resting", "pining for the fjords", and other nonsense. There are no real insults except for John Cleese accidentally calling the man "miss", but it's funny for the non sequiturs and overdone accents. 'Oh Sir!' dials into that same dry British humor in the format of a turn-based word game, where each player selects an item from a list of words to put together into a muted, somewhat polite indignity.

Selecting a word or phrase removes it from your opponent's list, so there is a sense of strategy in denying them choice insults or forcing their sentence to end abruptly, causing them to lose a turn. The quality of the insult determines the player's score and subsequent damage to the opponent's health. Arbitrary modifiers from the environment, the players themselves, the background scenario, and combos can all add points. For instance, using two insults in a row about the opponent's father is considered rude and worth extra points, so it's worth it to grab the phrase "your father" on subsequent rounds so the other person can't use it against me. The game has a brief tutorial but it does a poor job explaining how the point values are actually calculated or how the turns work, but the system itself isn't particularly complicated. In addition to the ten or so words available to both insulters, two special phrases are available only to me, and can be swapped for a different set with a quick cup of tea (of course). It is usually better to steal choice things from the common pool first and then use the private ones to finish up a sentence.

There is a wry humor in how posh and inoffensive the comments are, but that novelty fades quickly and 'Oh Sir!' becomes a very tedious process. Many of the words pop up over and over again, and each variation of the same joke is less funny than the last. There's only so many times that accusing your sister of never watching 'Star Wars' or suggesting that she had an affair with her math teacher can elicit a courteous sniff from me (not even a polite chuckle, I'm sad to say). The word pool isn't very large, probably because the developers insisted on voicing every line in overwrought English accents. After two matches, each about ten minutes long, I felt as though I had experienced the sum total of what 'Oh Sir!" could offer me, at least in the single-player mode.

Playing 'Oh Sir!' with a friend is marginally more entertaining, if both players are in the mood for the Monte Python style way of talking to people but only in a very limited, contrived manner. The first game I had with a buddy was decent as we poked fun at the lame jokes, but afterwards I had trouble convincing him or myself to keep going for the sake of the review. Word games with friends can be great, but they usually have a decent amount of content for the purpose of replay, something that this game does not possess in the slightest.