OK, so this is kind of late for a post on Insert Credit, and extra late for PAX coverage, but I have something going for me that no one else does.
I'm the only person who went to PAX and finished Machinarium.
That makes me the only person* outside of Amanita that's seen the game start to finish. I am uniquely qualified to tell you about how, man, it's real good. I'm familiar with the Samarost games from the same team, as well as the Quest for the Rest advergame they did for the Polyphonic Spree. I really enjoyed all of those, but I honestly think Machinarium is the strongest work to come out of the company.
Just to get it out of the way, the game is stunning. Quick Google searches will find previews that consist of almost no information beyond "PRETTY." It's all true, and in fact, I love the visuals so much, I'm not including a screen shot. I didn't want to squash any of the art down. Check out the site itself for some preview art. Beyond just the wallpaper worthy backgrounds, the characters are fantastically designed and animated, conveying heaps of emotion and pathos. Which is good, since none of them talk.
The game is silent, with story (and often hints) given in the form of simple pictograms and black and white cartoons. The story conveys beautifully, and as a bonus, the Czech developers don't have to worry about translations. I like the way plot points are unfolded in the game, so I'll avoid any details, but I will point out that the game is similar to other Amanita games in that we start with a lone protagonist, marooned somewhere, trying to set things right. It's not Samarost 3 though, and they take the journey in a very different way.
The puzzles are a strong mix of logic and inventory, with the occasional mini-game, or Myst style puzzle. Most of these are very solvable, though I'll admit that having a rotating audience of PAX attendees offering input definitely sped me through the game. While I like this style of variation, every game play element I had a problem with was related to one of the mini-games. The Space Invaders clone is played by using the mouse to click buttons on an in game interface, which is maddeningly imprecise and slow. Some of the puzzles, especially around the end-game were just too damn hard, with even the crowd-sourced solutions failing, and eventually calling Jakub, the creator, over to solve one of them (well, two, but one was a music puzzle was was simply impossible on the noisy show floor). Still, this leaves an overwhelming majority of puzzles that I enjoyed, including some with the kind of solution that leaves the player saying "OH! OH! OF COURSE!" after scratching their head for half an hour.
I played the entire game on the show floor at PAX. That means I did the whole thing standing up, with a mouse on a surface just low enough to make my wrist hurt. I did this within earshot of the What Is Bothering Carl booth, which resulted in hearing the theme song, I'd estimate, once every ten minutes. It stops being charming quite rapidly. (One of the Story Fort guys apologized that night.) I did the whole game in one sitting, in these conditions, because I was throughly entranced by it. The design, the music, the puzzles, and the almost-offensively-cute main character kept me there, because, fantastic artwork aside, this is a truly beautiful game.
*Actually, Frank was there the whole time. He actually controlled the mouse for part of it.
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