What's The Deal With... Machinarium?

by danielkempster

I'll start by saying that the following blog is a little bit of an experiment on my part. Anyone who's been following me for a while will no doubt be familiar with my 'Discovering Gaming Greatness' series of blogs, a simple review-like format that I adopted way back when I started blogging here in August of 2008, to put across thoughts about games that I was either close to finishing, or had recently finished with. That format, while initially effective, has suffered as I've gradually made my blogs longer and longer. So, with a view to rectifying this, I've decided to test out a new format for these post-gameplay musings. This format, provisionally titled 'What's The Deal With...?', is specifically designed to be more concise - a brief recap of how I came to start playing the game in the first place, followed by a paragraph of likes and a paragraph of dislikes. The idea is that it's a lot less wordy than my 'Discovering Gaming Greatness' blogs, but still more fleshed out and personal than a simple list of bullet points (actually, that's not fair - some people can make bullet points take on a personality all their own, but I don't possess that gift). Anyway, I'd be grateful for any feedback you guys would care to provide with regards to the new format. With all that said and done, let's get on with writing the damn thing, shall we?

Machinarium

Cute robots. Almost as irresistible as a fluffy kitten in mild peril. Machinarium isn't what I'd consider to be representative of the kind of game I'd typically pick up. First off, it's a PC game - not usually my platform of choice, given I only own a crappy laptop with a tendency to overheat. Second, it's a point-n-click adventure title, a genre that I'm still in the process of taking my first tentative steps into. And yet, here I am, making this charming little adventure-puzzler the first inductee into the Hall of 'What's The Deal With...?'. When I went to the game's official website, I wasn't intending to make a purchase. I'd simply read a news story somewhere related to the level of piracy this independently-developed game was experiencing, and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. This is where things began to take a turn towards my impulse-buying nature, because in a stroke of genius, the developers, Amanita Design, have turned the game's homepage into a playable demo of the game's opening screens. By the time I'd solved the game's opening couple of puzzles, I was hooked, and convinced this was worth a purchase, especially at the very low price point of $5, or £3.90 for us English folk. I've spent the last few days playing through it with my girlfriend, who was also impressed by the demo, and having just seen the finale, I'm ready to write something about it.

What's Good About It?

Anybody who says this game doesn't look gorgeous is lying I suppose the best place to start would be the game's graphical style. It's the first thing that stands out when you boot up Machinarium, probably because every single art asset in this game is handcrafted. It gives it a beautiful, almost storybook-like quality comparable to the better-known Braid. This charm extends into the soundtrack, an appropriately ambient blend of whirrs and beeps, and also the storytelling, largely because the story is told through images rather than text. In terms of gameplay, it's a point-n-click adventure - most of it is based around item collection, and then using those items in the right context in order to solve puzzles and progress. The interface is incredibly clean and easy-to-use, and unlike The Secret of Monkey Island (my only other full foray into the genre to date), doesn't get cluttered up with items that have exhausted their use. Also worthy of praise is the game's hint system, which has two tiers - a simple one-off hint that can be called upon at any time, or an in-depth solution to the current screen that has to be unlocked by playing a mini-game. I'm not ashamed to admit that we turned to this a few times in our playthrough, and its image-based solutions were helpful without breaking the illusion of the gameworld that we'd become so absorbed in.

What's Not So Good About It?

Machinarium's difficulty spikes like a pit full of pungee sticks That's not to say there aren't things that I didn't like about Machinarium. One of my most consistent gripes was with the game's 'reach' feature, which will only let protagonist Josef interact with objects nearby. Touted as a gameplay feature, it's more of a novelty that quickly becomes an inconvenience, especially when you're trying to check where an object could be used and need to keep traipsing around the screen to get within range of each hotspot. Another issue I found difficult to ignore was the game's tendency to very wildly in its difficulty level. The start of the game seems to ease the player in nicely, but about halfway through the difficulty spikes harshly, and then becomes almost painfully easy towards the end. This difficulty spike arises out of a few puzzles in the game's middle third that seem to make little to no logical sense (these were the occasions where turning to the in-depth hints were unavoidable for me).

Machinarium is an awesome little game, on the whole. Its charm and style were more than enough to win me over, in spite of its often-frustrating faults. It's on the short side, with our playthrough clocking in at around three hours, but that's not something I'd want to hold against it - if anything its brevity works in its favour and makes its existing issues even more tolerable. It's definitely something that should be experienced, simply on merit of its impressive visual style and endearing attempt at alternative storytelling. There's a lot to like in this little package, and at a $5 price point with the game's whole soundtrack thrown in for free, even the most frugal of gamers doesn't have an excuse for missing out on this experience.

Dan

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Currently playing - Final Fantasy VII (PSP)

UPDATE (19th August 2010) - It looks like the $5 deal over on the Machinarium website has come to an end, and it's now retailing for $20 (around £12.50). Sorry if this blog got anybody's hopes up about the price point.