Heir of the Dog Review: A Brilliantly Funny Point-and-Click Adventure

Published Oct 29, 2026, 2:39 PM EDT With brilliant voice acting, wonderfully absurd humour, and deeply satisfying puzzles, Heir of the Dog is a delightful point-and-click adventure that Heir Of The Dog Review: The Best Kind Of Nonsense There are plenty of things a respectable Victorian gentleman shouldn't do. Drinking an experimental concoction found in his uncle's laboratory is probably quite high on the list, but Cummerbund Bandersnatch is not a particularly discerning man. One swig later, he's turning into a dog every night, his uncle is nowhere to be found, and the streets of London are suddenly full of people with very strange problems. As beginnings to a point-and-click adventure go, it's difficult to ask for much more. Heir of the Dog comes from Tall Story Games, the studio behind Lucy Dreaming, and it's a wonderful reminder of just how much life there is in the classic adventure game formula. This is a game of ridiculous conversations, improbable inventory combinations, and the occasional profound realisation that you have been approaching a problem entirely the wrong way. More importantly, it's a game that managed to make me almost bark with laughter. The setup takes obvious inspiration from Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, although Cummerbund is considerably less intimidating than Stevenson's unfortunate doctor. By day, he's a hapless aristocrat trying to make sense of his uncle's disappearance. By night, he transforms into a dog, equipped with an improbably precise nose. The resulting mystery draws him into an increasingly absurd version of Victorian London: peculiar residents, a fantastic parody of Sweeney Todd’s iconic pie shop, and plenty of Tall Story Games’s hilarious British product spoofs. Minty bumhug, anyone? I love how thoroughly the game commits to making this place feel like an actual world, rather than a collection of locations built to house puzzles. Every street seems to have another oddity to investigate, and even minor characters have enough personality to justify exhausting their dialogue options. The pixel art is lovely, too, particularly in the way it renders London's dingy streets without sacrificing the exaggerated expressions and visual jokes that give the game its character. A Very Good Boy The puzzles are where Heir of the Dog really earns its pedigree. Rather than offering a procession of isolated riddles, it gives you overlapping problems to unravel across a growing assortment of locations. One objective might depend on an item you've had for ages, a conversation somewhere else, and a detail you've passed several times without understanding its significance. Working through those connections is immensely satisfying, especially when a solution seems impossible until the whole thing suddenly clicks. The day-and-night system adds another dimension to all this. Cummerbund's transformation isn't merely a visual gag; his canine form can sniff out clues, interact with the environment differently, and access possibilities that simply aren't available when he's human. The ability to manipulate the time of day encourages you to reconsider locations you've already visited. A dead end might be a dead end only because you've arrived in the wrong body. Crucially, the difficulty feels like an invitation to think rather than an attempt to waste your time. There's real depth here, with puzzles that ask you to pay attention to the world and remember what its inhabitants have told you. Heir of the Dog trusts its players to make connections for themselves. It doesn't always get the balance exactly right, however. Occasionally, progress hinges on a specific interaction that isn't communicated as clearly as it could be, and the sheer number of available leads can make it difficult to work out which problem you're supposed to tackle next. Those moments are frustrating, but they're exceptions in a game that otherwise makes being stuck feel strangely enjoyable. Barking Mad It helps enormously that Heir of the Dog is so funny. Its humour is distinctly British, steeped in class-conscious absurdity, silly names, dreadful puns, and the sort of conversational escalation that makes an initially throwaway character increasingly ridiculous. Importantly, the jokes don't exist separately from the adventure. They're woven into the puzzle solutions, the background details, and the reactions you get when you try something particularly ill-advised. That last point is especially important for a point-and-click game. Experimentation is much easier to enjoy when an unsuccessful attempt might reward you with another joke, and Heir of the Dog frequently makes curiosity worthwhile even when it doesn't move the story forward. I found myself wanting to investigate everything, not just because it might be useful, but because I wanted to know what someone would say about it. And, goodness, the voice acting. With a cast that includes Alasdair Beckett-King and Sally Beaumont, the performances have precisely the theatrical energy this script needs. The delivery makes already funny lines considerably funnier, with wonderfully judged pauses, exasperated responses, and accents that suit the setting's larger-than-life inhabitants. Cummerbund himself is a delightfully foolish presence to spend so much time with (with the most ridiculous, and I say this with love, voice I’ve ever heard), and the supporting cast makes the city feel crowded with memorable eccentrics. There is a great deal of affection for the point-and-click genre in every part of Heir of the Dog, but it never feels like nostalgia is doing the heavy lifting. Its world is funny enough to sustain your interest, its puzzles are substantial enough to demand it, and its performances make even a mundane exchange worth hearing. A few overcomplicated interactions keep it from perfection, but they barely dent the experience. This is an excellent adventure, and one I'll be thinking about long after I've stopped wondering what on earth possessed someone to create that flipping hot air balloon puzzle. Systems Released October 29, 2026 Developer(s) Tall Story Games Publisher(s) Tall Story Games Number of Players Single-player Steam Deck Compatibility Unknown Genre(s) Point-and-click, Comedy, Puzzle, Visual Novel, Mystery Pros & Cons Incredibly funny Masterful puzzles Wonderful voice acting A little reliance on 'funny word sounds funny haha' humour