I posted a tweet the other day about how you should check out Machinarium if you like atmospheric music, point-and-click adventures, or puzzle games. I thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d touch on a few more details in a quick blog post.<\/p>\n
First thing is first though: if you have any interest in the game, check out the demo on the website. It covers the first few stages, and gives you a pretty good indication as to what the rest of the game is like. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the best way to decide if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a game you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be interested in. For me, it was well worth $5 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c if for no other reason than to get the soundtrack.<\/p>\n
Music<\/strong> Gameplay<\/strong> Story<\/strong> Other<\/strong> Later on in the game, the puzzles become a little bit trickier to figure out, but it never becomes impossible \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and, of course, you have the walkthrough to nudge you in the right direction if you truly get stuck.<\/p>\n All in all, it is a very charming game, and worth your time to experience. At least try out the demo. I bought the game on sale for $5, and that was primarily for the soundtrack. But now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m playing the game too, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m enjoying it.<\/p>\n
Which leads me to my favorite part of the game: the music. As I mentioned in my tweet, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very atmospheric. It sets the mood of the game more than providing actual background music \u00e2\u20ac\u201c although there is some of that as well. As you can imagine, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inspired by machines of old, which the game also seems inspired by. It works really well.<\/p>\n
If you know what a point and click adventure is, you know what is involved with Machinarium. The game consists entirely of moving from one location to another, discovering secrets, and solving puzzles to open the path to the next location. The puzzles, and the presentation of the puzzles, are very clever. Sometimes what you need to do is obvious. Sometimes it requires a lot of trial and error until you discover the one little secret that you forgot. And other times, you hit a brick wall and really don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know how the pieces fit together. (Sometimes, literally. You have an inventory of items you collect, which you can use to solve puzzles. Those items can be fastened together to create a new item, too.) In cases where you are stumped, the game gives you two helping hands. The first is a simple pictorial hint, which you can use once per location. This gets progressively vague as the game goes on. The next helping hand is a complete walkthrough. To get to it, you play a simple, sometimes challenging mini-game. Once unlocked, it shows you the progression of what needs to be done in your current locale, in comic-book, pictorial form. The interesting thing is that it ONLY shows you the current location \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell you how it relates to stuff you need to do in other locations.<\/p>\n
The story so far has been the weakest part of the game. You aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t explicitly told what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to do, although pieces start to fill in as you progress. There is no dialog in the game, just pictures in thought bubbles. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a cute presentation, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting to see how well the story is told within these limitations. But it has not been my driving force for continuing to play.<\/p>\n
This is a flash-based game, so it runs on any platform that supports flash \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Windows, Mac and Linux. Saying that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153flash-based\u00e2\u20ac\u009d carries certain negative assumptions with it, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually very well implemented. This is how flash SHOULD be used. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m impressed.<\/p>\n