![]() What sets it apart from other adventure games is that the interface is very minimalist compared to most games and it doesn’t have any spoken dialogue whatsoever throughout the game. Machinarium is a point-and-click adventure game that is somewhat different than your traditional adventure game. Welcome to Gamezebo’s walkthrough for Machinarium. basically bad imitations of games that aren't super fun to begin with, and distracting from the awesome adventure-puzzle stuff. The only thing I didn't really enjoy were the arcade-style minigames. I really liked the moment when you get to play as the lady robot friend and wished there had been more of that - it would have made the game a little less "save the princess"-ish (a legitimate complaint made upthread). Like, the hall of robot heads? The big head scholar type in the tower (philosopher king)? Why were the black hats planting a bomb anyway, other than just being jerks? there are little things that make you go "what was up with that?" and wonder about the larger context. I liked that it felt more like a complete world than the Samorost games. That totally didn't need to be there, but I'm glad it was. ![]() Once when I left the computer for a second and came back, my little robot was daydreaming about a scenario in which he and his robot lady friend are smoking "cattails," and nearly get found out by the robot police. There's a lot of superfluous stuff that's there just to be neat. Sure, the walking animations are slow, but there's so much detail in the environments and animations that I didn't really mind taking that time to soak everything in. I only resorted to walkthrough once early on, when I somehow missed a particular object-environment combination. I didn't find the puzzles overly pixel-hunty - most of the things you need to click on stand out just enough from the background to be noticed as "important" or "interesting" - it's subtle but it's there. So, pretty short, but obviously a lot of care and attention went into this game, and it was pretty much pure joy to play. Under normal circumstances, it probably would've taken a week or so. I bought it and beat it in a couple days, but one of those was a designated "day off" of extreme slackness. It's the visual equivalent of "guess the verb" in text adventures, and it's an interface problem, not a legitimate aspect of a puzzle. At least once I stumbled into the puzzle mechanic from random clicking, merely because I couldn't make the game do anything. ![]() Multiple times I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but had to spamclick my way around the screen to figure out what part of the scenery was going to respond to me. I liked the humor, art, and flavor of the game and the puzzle design was pretty good, but the demo was waaaaaaay too hunt-the-pixel for me. ![]() As someone who actually does make Steam purchases from time to time, I don't think "just get it through Steam" is the right answer here. Almost as bad, it actually adds DRM / copy protection to an otherwise undamaged title. Steam has a couple of disadvantages: It only works for Windows, useless to anyone looking to buy this game for the other supported platforms. While I appreciate that Steam is a good way for indie developers to get their stuff in front of a fairly wide audience, "just get it through Steam" is kind of a bad answer. "If anyone's still having trouble purchasing, just get it through Steam." My recommendation? Support these guys, buy it and play it. I could complain the usual adventure gripes (sticking random things together till it works, missing things that look like they're in the background), but they're not criminal offenses. Makes me feel of Soviet era drawing with steampunk. The only place it doesn't work is multiple room puzzles (you have to unlock the book in each room, and the game to open it isn't even very fun in the end).Īnd the art direction's great. Heh, that little shooting key still makes me laugh. I have to take breaks in between cracking puzzles.Īnd thank god they included a walkthrough just in case, especially how they handle those complete spoilers- making you play a little side scrolling shooter to open the walkthrough. If you're not puzzle inclined it takes time. They pack a lot of stuff in: at least for the beginning, every room you're in is a really clever puzzle filled with little meta puzzles (think switches, tile puzzles). It's a joy, and I was actually sad to find puzzles that I'd seen in trailers (i.e. They spoil puzzles, and this is basically the entire point. Let me warn those of you considering a purchase- don't look at the trailers and previews and all that. And it is excellent so far, and I have not even beaten it yet.
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