Clotilde Soffritti in Never Buy a Used Spaceship

		The title screen.
Developer:	Lorenzo Boni
Released:	2019.11.03
Genre:	SciFi / Comedy
Graphics:	Cartoon / 2D
Perspective:	Third person
Gameplay:	Point-and-Click

Note: this game can be played with ScummVM software.

It's a tough situation when you are stuck on a planet with no transport out of there, and the only one who can even theoretically help is a used ship salesman. Or a salescreature in this case. That's a very hard place to be in for any man. Or a woman in this case, who goes by the name Clotilde Soffritti, and who happens to be the protagonist of this short, but charming point-and-click adventure game.

Well, what follows is that the deal is made, the protagonist gets her ship, but as it is indeed a pre-owned ship, the ship's computer doesn't recognise Clotilde Soffritti as its real owner and locks her out of the bridge. Which wouldn't be such a big deal, if the ship wasn't heading straight towards the sun. So obviously the protagonist needs to somehow gain control of the ship, and then try to make her way out of the star system she is stuck in.

The protagonist buying a spaceship.
The game consists of 2-4 rooms to play, depending on how one wants to count that. Or like the official description humouristically states: "15 rooms, not even a third of them playable!". Among other salespoints for this freeware game are: "Lots of stuff to click on!", "No moral choices whatsoever!", and "Several gripping minutes of gameplay!". So while the game may be a bit small in size, it is loaded with humour, even when only reading about it! Those few rooms in the game are actually a twisted escape room scenario, where storywise the goal is to get in, but the underlying game mechanism is the same as in games where the player needs to get out of a room.

It's all good. Very good, actually. While the game can be completed within minutes, those minutes are quality time for sure. The puzzles in the game are surprisingly good, everything that needs to be done is kind of obvious, but the actual steps to achieve puzzle solutions are not. In order to finish the game, the player needs to play with food synthesizers, hack into computers, and open locked doors. There is certain logic to the puzzles, but of course logic in the sense that it is found in comedic science fiction adventures, which differs from the real life obviously.

The game looks good in its cartoon/comic style. Again there is not much content in quantity, but the quality is so good, that seeing a single screenshot from the game immediately makes one want to start playing the game. Assuming of course that the given person is into cartoony comic science fiction point-and-click games, which not all players are, for some reason, but those who actually are, will not be disappointed by anything in the game, except possibly its short length.

Wrong heading!
What could possibly be improved is the audio in the game. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it, but there are no voiceovers for any characters, and music doesn't seem to be custom-made for this game. It's understandable, but having that would be the icing on the cake, as is in some other similar small-scale games. Other possible minor fixes could be adding a hotspot indicator system, and maybe adding a look action in the right mouse click. Very small things, and not having them in the game doesn't take anything away from the game.

Hopefully there will be more adventures with Clotilde Soffritti, as the concept and the funny universe are great. If the same level of humour and quality could be maintained in some longer sequel, that would be a very welcomed game indeed. The way the game ends with a twist may actually be a point from where the story some other time picks up and carries on. Or maybe it is just a joke that is amusing for a while and that's it.

Clotilde Soffritti in Never Buy a Used Spaceship is great in the way it makes good and funny jokes about everything it can, even on the meta-level of having an official description that is in a way mocking the game. There is even nice humour when the game breaks the fourth wall, at least it appears to be doing so, when the used spaceship store is mentioned as a sponsor in the end credits! This game really deserves its "15 minutes of fame", so to speak, which is probably around the time it takes for an experienced adventurer to go through it. It's one of the best extremely short games out there, undoubtedly. To summarise: the game is a brilliant, funny, small experience that should not be missed if one finds these type of games even remotely interesting.

The door is locked.