Machinarium
Yes, yes. You’ve already seen blurbs about Machinarium all over the friggin’ bloggitysphere. But when a game this scrappy and adorable and smart and just painfully lovely pops up, we can’t not archive it here.
Amanita Design is the Czech indie game studio who brought the ‘wub those delightful point-and-click adventures, Samorost and Samorost 2. Aesthetically, their latest creation follows somewhat in Samorost‘s footsteps, but delves far deeper. For all its gorgeous visuals, ambiance, clever puzzles, and creaking, rusty robot action, what sets Machinarium apart and above other point-and-click games is its surprising depth. Such tenderness and subtlety, humor and intelligence!
This is worldbuilding of the highest caliber, with a compelling narrative that slowly unfolds as you play through, bringing Wall-E, Perdido Street Station and The City of Lost Children to mind in equal measure. No spoilers. Just click here, try out the demo, and you’ll understand why it might just be the best 17 bucks you spend all month.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:51 am
I was obsessively playing the demo last night. $17 is way too cheap a price for owning such a beautiful world.
October 21st, 2009 at 7:17 am
It looks too beautiful. This is the last straw, I must have this game.
And to think that some would have you believe point-and-click gaming is dead.
October 21st, 2009 at 9:29 am
I’m not usually much of a gamer, but Stache and I fully got sucked into playing Samarost for hours a few days ago… It’s a delight to look at, and I’m so excited about Machinarium.
We’re such geeks we’re actually planning a date to play it together. Quality time, yep.
October 21st, 2009 at 3:20 pm
Being a long time video game junkie it’s been a real treat as of late to see games like Machinarium pop up again. Still any who enjoyed this PLEASE take time to explore the vast indie gaming scene popping up as a whole. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to find quite a bit of artistic innovation going on both in terms of graphics and design. Even on the mainstream gaming side of things some real gems are getting lost in the cracks that are worth taking a bit of time to enjoy.
October 21st, 2009 at 6:28 pm
This is simply beautiful, clever, and very sweet! I was playing the demo this morning after an all-nighter, and found myself thoroughly absorbed.
Wonderful design.
October 21st, 2009 at 6:54 pm
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a classic of the genre, being the best adventure game I’ve played since, well, the 90s.
In a completely different register, you may want to give 99 Rooms a peak. It’s all atmosphere. And Windosill is a surreal little toy worth a look too.
October 23rd, 2009 at 8:24 am
Looks wonderful! I’ll have to try this out if I ever get the time.
October 28th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
this game reminded me a little of the neverhood, which was an amazing stop motion animation point and click game I loved when I was about…10?
It kind of is similar in design to 90`s games that I loved as a child that have sadly disapeared. Did anyone play creatures?
October 30th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Nice! My friend Nog showed this to me the other day, actually dragged me to one of those desktop sharing chats to help him out.
I loved old point and clicks when I was younger, Pajama Sam in particular was a beautiful game.
November 21st, 2009 at 10:41 am
i love this! i’m hopelessly addicted, so much so that after the first night of playing i was still solving the puzzles in my dreams. and! super nifty bonus, you get the soundtrack when you purchase the game and it is also delightful. thanks for sharing. <3