By John Walker on October 16th, 2009 at 9:00 am.
The long awaited adventure Machinarium is finally available today. After staring in wonder at the artwork and trailers for months I was able to play through a finished version this week in order that I could tell you Wot I Think.
Machinarium is an extraordinarily beautiful creation. It’s a sort of beauty that games are almost never graced with. The awesome panoramas of a Crysis or a Far Cry 2 can be remarkable, but it’s always technically remarkable. The gorgeous graphics of games like the recent Prince of Persia or the forthcoming Borderlands are artistic works, imaginative and fresh. But Machinarium’s scratchy, hand-drawn robot world is beautiful.
If you’ve played Samorost 1 or 2 you’ll already know something of the worlds creator Jakub Dvorský designs. Where those games combined his adorable cartoons with organic real-world collage, Machinarium’s point and click adventuring is entirely hand-created. Each location is breath-taking – as in, every time I walked to a new scene I sharply drew in breath in wonder. Elaborate rooms bursting with intricate detail, alive with charm, ready to be explored.
The protagonist is a small, adorable robot. He has been thrown out of the city, and your task is to get him back in again. Any other goals grow organically once you’re inside. These might be aiding a group of busking robots to restore their instruments, or helping an elderly robot to oil his broken wheelchair, each contributing toward the next, making a path to your final goal. Much of it is about puzzle solving, either collecting and combining objects and using them in the correct place, or literal puzzles: lever challenges, a board game, even some arcade challenges.
Early stages play out as a series of scenes, each to be solved until you can access the next. But a third of the way through Machinarium blossoms out into a much larger world. Once in the city you have a hub area with many directions to head in, puzzles solved in one vital for progress in another. In many ways, it’s a traditional point and click adventure.
And one of those traditions is quite how hard it can be. Success is about exploration and experimentation. The opening puzzle requires you to disguise yourself as a guard robot to gain access to the city. But first you must figure out that this is what the game wants you to do. As a long-time adventure game player it’s an instinctive notion, and emulating a disguise from the surrounding objects has been the solution to dozens of games’ puzzles over the years. But I wonder how instinctively painting a traffic cone and stealing a light bulb will come to those who didn’t have such irrational logic etched into their brains as a child.
However, to ensure no one is stuck for long Machinarium offers two levels of hints. Most scenes will have a very simple clue available by clicking the bulb that appears in the top menu. A thought bubble will appear with a simple sketch indicating the key action that needs to be taken. If you’re still stuck after that, there’s a clue book that can be clicked on which will offer a detailed pictorial guide for what that location requires of you. However, to prevent lazy peeking, the book is itself a little arcade game. You must guide a key through a side scrolling hazardous route, dodging the rocks and firing at enemy spiders, until you reach a keyhole. Er, yes. Do this and the walkthrough is yours. It’s not difficult, but it’s time consuming, and it’s one of the best ways to put you off cheating I’ve seen. And I should add, some of the puzzles are brilliant. The butterfly wing/slide projector puzzle is a pleasure to solve, and many – like the popcorn/crowbar incident – are just so special.
Another way in which the game can prove hard is finding the hotspots. I think this is going to be a matter of some contention. In previous games Amanita Design have let you explore the scene with the mouse to discover items with which you can interact. When the hand icon appears, you know it’s of interest. However in Machinarium you must be standing near something before it will reveal that it’s accessible. As I played through I rarely found this to be a problem. The use of the ‘walk’ icon is in a large part to thank – generally if there’s nothing useful in an area you can’t walk there. So in turn, if you can go there, there’s something to do. The other key thing to remember is that your robot has a stretchy tummy – perhaps game’s first stretchy tummy since James Pond. This means you can make him taller or shorter, letting him reach higher or under objects. It’s an extremely cute device, made cuter by his waddling about when at these extremes.
While I can predict people getting upset by a lack of direction in some areas (there were three occasions where I was forced to turn to the hint book for help), it’s hard to care for long. Everything about it is so joyously engaging.
Regular Amanita contributor Tomáš Dvořák once again provides the music, which is wonderful beyond compare. Almost every scene has its own score, each good enough to task switch out of the game and leave running in a loop in the background for hours. The scene in which you reunite the band with their instruments is an incredible highlight, and as they begin to perform this gorgeous jazz should you leave your robot still he will dance along. The game comes with the full soundtrack as mp3s when bought directly from Amanita, and they accompany me as I write this.
Then there’s the daydreams. The story is simple and delightful, but is importantly discovered as you play – even the description on the game’s own website says far, far too much. And the daydreams are part of the slow understanding of what’s going on. They’re portrayed as minimalist Flash cartoons within thought bubbles above the robot’s head, roughly drawn black outlines dancingly animated. You might see your robot accompanied by a friend, the two playing together, laughing and full of happiness. As the dream bursts, the sadness of the little guy’s isolation in this decaying city becomes so much more poignant. Or perhaps you’ll see memories of being bullied, special moments ruined by larger, crueller robots. They’re heartbreaking. Hand over your mouth, eyelids blinking away.
In fact, so much made me coo and aww out loud. A moment with a large police robot and his tiny broken pink robot bunny is as wonderful and touching as anything in Pixar’s WALL-E. It’s a world bursting with love and sadness. I laughed out loud so often, and gasped even more frequently.
Some people won’t like some of the more obscure puzzles, and there’s no escaping this. But while the sliding tile challenge (it is slightly different from a regular one, I promise) may irritate, the same scene’s owl is too astonishingly lovely to maintain any malice. I shall not spoil anything, but believe me, when you’ve played it you’ll want to find someone else who has too and talk about the owl. Oh, the owl.
There’s so many of these tiny vignettes, little delights, that melt you. I cannot think of any other game in existence where remembering a puzzle brings tears to my eyes, but as I hurriedly went back to edit in a mention of the popcorn puzzle, that’s exactly what happened.*
Machinarium is a delightful point and click adventure, if slightly flawed on occasion in its five or six hours. The hotspot hunting is going to put some people off completely, and I’m not sure it was a good design decision to require proximity to find them. But it’s so much more than that. It’s a work of passion, and it’s ludicrously adorable.
Machinarium is available from today from here for $20, and comes with the 51 minute soundtrack. Here’s the trailer:
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*And screw my reputation for being a cry-baby, as I mentioned here that’s been two games ever.
16/10/2009 at 09:07 Wilson says:
Hmm. I enjoyed the demo, and had been planning on waiting for it to become cheaper. But five or six hours sounds like a decent amount to time, so maybe I’ll just buy it already. I do like 2D adventure games.
16/10/2009 at 09:12 P7uen says:
Website isn’t selling it yet… damn you, international time zones.
*drums fingers*
16/10/2009 at 09:19 duel says:
Pre-ordered this about a month ago, I just think this is too good to miss, it just looks so beautiful :)
but thankyou RPS for reminding me that the release date was today! I had completely forgot, and it seems the email with my download link was lost in my spam folder, so many thanks!
16/10/2009 at 09:26 JohnArr says:
If you pre-ordered check your junk filters!
Getting the soundtrack to play at work now, hurrah!
16/10/2009 at 09:49 Lewis says:
Thought you might like this one, John. Agree on all accounts.
The owl! AND THE CAT THAT GOES “MNNEEEEEEERRRR!”
16/10/2009 at 09:51 LewieP says:
Sounds excellent.
16/10/2009 at 09:52 oceanclub says:
I got completely stuck in the demo within minutes, nay seconds. I finished Ben There Done That the other day so I don’t think I’m that adventure-dumb.
P.
16/10/2009 at 09:53 Dominus says:
argh! where’s my preorder download link :(((
its not even in the spam folder :<
16/10/2009 at 09:53 Risingson says:
Amanita do really have a touch for cuteness. But don’t mix things: this is not a traditional 2d adventure. This is more an interactive feast of clicks, following examples like “The Manhole”. Which is not a bad thing, but it’s like saying that “Fool’s Errand” is a traditional adventure.
16/10/2009 at 10:08 John Walker says:
Have you played the game? Because it’s very much like a traditional point and click adventure. Something that surprised me once I was past the first few rooms.
16/10/2009 at 09:56 Craymen Edge says:
I have my email with the download link, but now I’ve got to wait the whole working day before I can try it. This is going to be a long day. :(
16/10/2009 at 09:58 triple_a says:
I have this preordered from Gamersgate so I will get to test this after work. Looks & sounds beautiful.
Lots of good indie adventures this year, it seems.
16/10/2009 at 10:02 Paul says:
I don’t like point and click adventure games, gameplay is too slow and uninvolving for me (rpg thus being my genre of choice), but I preoredered this on steam because it just looks so BEAUTIFUL.And I like supporting such talented artists.
16/10/2009 at 10:03 Ian says:
I’m glad there is a built-in tips/walkthrough system. I enjoy adventure games but I have long since accepted that if I’m to finish them I WILL have to cheat sometimes.
When I read a walkthrough and see that I was supposed to grease the cat and combine it with a pair of frilly pants I can say in all honesty I’d never, ever have got it without just combining everything with everything.
16/10/2009 at 10:10 Mort says:
hmm that was a gushing WIT.
For whatever reason I find point and clicks terminally boring. I bought time gentleman on the strength of coverage here, and hated it. However, I loved samorost.
Luckily, they tend to be cheap enough to just take a chance, but then I have that unfinished game guilt notched up yet another level.
Not sure on this, everyone goes on about the art, and rightly so, but the pretty art is useless without the gameplay, that will be what holds me, and I’m a tad reticent due to the hot spot thing.
I’ll buy though, who the hell am I kidding?
16/10/2009 at 10:11 Schaulustiger says:
I just wish they had used a programming framework that is a little bit more serious than Flash.
16/10/2009 at 10:17 Tei says:
*joke* Macromedia Director? *joke* ,… fear not more. Adobe is moving Flash to a full framework system. Since it serve well has a Epic Troyan Horse to enter markets like the iPOD. Is hard (for the users) to avoid the need to watch Youtube videos,…
Is *sure* that Adobe will make his javascript engine faster (with realtime compilation to native assembler, or other ninja technology), and remove all traits to web-ish stuff… like the menu that you see wen rigth-click. The installer and these stuff feel already native-like.
*looks in Captain Forever direction* It will be good if more flash games move in this direction.
16/10/2009 at 21:17 RobF says:
Eh, why?
Does it matter?
16/10/2009 at 10:14 Hmm says:
If the game is as good as the demo, it’s a GOTY contender for me.
16/10/2009 at 10:15 Kid A says:
TOO. MUCH. STUFF. TO. BUY.
Also: crybaby.
16/10/2009 at 10:15 Thirith says:
Why, Schaulustiger? Is it that Flash doesn’t do the job for this game?
16/10/2009 at 10:17 John Walker says:
The inability to right click is a shame. Otherwise it seemed to work well.
16/10/2009 at 10:58 Schaulustiger says:
I found the inventory to be a bit fiddly. It needed too much precision to put an item back in there and I blame Flash for that. Right-clicking to dismiss an item would have been alot better, but this only brings up the ugly Flash context menu which always breaks the immersion.
16/10/2009 at 10:20 The Sombrero Kid says:
they shouldn’t've written it in flash, i was so disappointed when i found out it was, on the plus side though in a few month we’ll all be able to play this on our phones, £11 is too much money though imo.
16/10/2009 at 10:58 Richard Clayton says:
@The Sombrero Kid: Why so disappointed they wrote it in Flash?
I can agree that the default right click context menu and default “hand” icon are constant reminders you are playing a flash game but aside from that I don’t see your problem.
Does it matter whether a game is written in C, C++, Cobol, Fortran, LUA?
Having played the demo I can’t see that the developers’ game design was limited by the choice of technology. Flash is ideal for 2d adventure games and ideal for this kind of hand drawn art.
John, having played all the way through are there points where the game is limited by its technology?
16/10/2009 at 11:16 Dan Milburn says:
I can agree that the default right click context menu and default “hand” icon are constant reminders you are playing a flash game but aside from that I don’t see your problem.
That is the problem. I just played through the demo; it was fun and I may well buy the game.
But the use of Flash badly affects the UI, and worse than that it damages the feel of the game. Given that so much care has been taken over the lovely graphics and sound, this is unfortunate.
16/10/2009 at 12:21 The Sombrero Kid says:
what dan said & also flash is a scripting language, c++ is compiled to native code, native code runs faster, doesn’t need to be jitted, is more stable, has a smaller memory footprint, and doesn’t have garbage collection (which is a good thing)
16/10/2009 at 12:50 Richard Clayton says:
@Sombrero and Dan:
In that case, yup I agree with what you both say. I’ve only played the demo and didn’t find the interpreted nature of flash to hinder the performance of the game.
And you have to admit it does make it possible to build games with less outlay, resources and technical ability (Windows DirectX programming etc).
This enables games designers and games artists to actually produce a game with only a little technical expertise.
This is often a BAD thing! But in this case definitely a good thing.
However I personally would made sure that one of the first things I did was to disable the right-click context menu to hide the fact that it was flash and keep everything enclosed within the game.
Thanks for expanding on this gents.
16/10/2009 at 13:33 GibletHead2000 says:
I’m sorry but how on earth does having garbage collection impact on the quality of the gameplay? Just because C++ is ‘faster’, doesn’t mean it’s required. You’re not pushing this game to it’s limit, trying to megatexture a gigabazillion ultravoxels a second or anything… You’re esentially viewing hand-drawn animations. Does it really have to run at 200fps, when the animation is only drawn at 15?
I don’t take the point about the hand, either. I think the only problem that there is when something “reminds you it’s flash”, is that you’re so used to playing free flash games that you end up (irrationally) feeling like you’re paying for something you shouldn’t have had to.
16/10/2009 at 14:09 The Sombrero Kid says:
it matters to me that it runs at a low framerate and is jittery on my laptop needlessly thanks to the interpretation layer and memory manager, saying that i agree that the lower barrier to entry of scripting languages is overall a good thing.
16/10/2009 at 10:21 Dan Milburn says:
Also available on Steam for £11.24 in the UK, which I think is slightly cheaper.
16/10/2009 at 10:24 Hoshimodo says:
So glad I pre-ordered yesterday…..
16/10/2009 at 10:25 Hmm-Hmm. says:
RPS is bad for my wallet. In the case of Machinarium, that may be a good thing.
16/10/2009 at 17:01 kalidanthepalidan says:
I have $20 in my gaming budget left for the month. Need to decide between this or Torchlight. Oh what to do, what to do?!?
16/10/2009 at 19:10 jsutcliffe says:
Torchlight.
This post is brought to you by Jsutcliffe’s Amazing Decision Engine (JADE).
16/10/2009 at 10:27 Lewis says:
Interested that so many people are finding it brutally difficult. I didn’t at all, though that might be thanks to the hints system – which admittedly I used quite a few times, but it felt more like an integral part of the game than it did properly cheating.
Or maybe it was just a breeze in comparison to Outcry, which I played the day after.
16/10/2009 at 10:30 John Walker says:
Um, Lewis? If you used the hint system a lot, doesn’t that somewhat imply you found it rather difficult?
16/10/2009 at 10:53 The Sombrero Kid says:
the hint system is part of the game though, it’s supposed to be used. like when valve use lighting and stuff to draw your attention to something, it’s not cheating to use it.
16/10/2009 at 11:44 Xocrates says:
Adventure games are adding hint systems so that people don’t have to alt-tab into a browser the moment they get stuck, not to make the game easier. It’s not cheating, but using it does mean that you needed to.
16/10/2009 at 10:29 Man Raised By Puffins says:
Good good, I’ll be picking this up when my wallet isn’t quite so strained.
As an aside, does anyone know what the story behind Axel & Pixel is? It’s very reminiscent of the Samarost games but with mini-games and QTEs thrown into the mix. All I can seem to find out about it is that a different Czech indie studio (Silver Wish Games) developed it.
16/10/2009 at 11:28 Paul says:
Axel and Pixel is actually made by 2K Czech, creators of Mafia franchise.It is their little sideproject.Silver Wish is just used for a lowbudget games.
16/10/2009 at 10:52 Kerry says:
Just out of curiosity, why the disappointment?
16/10/2009 at 10:54 Kerry says:
Ack. The above comment was a response to the further above comment concerning the fact that it’s a Flash game.
16/10/2009 at 10:59 Xocrates says:
I tried the Demo, but between not being able to know if you can interact with something unless you’re in range, the somewhat obscure puzzles (made far more difficult due to the first issue), and the start of the game (or at least the demo) giving you no motivation to do anything other than “because you can” it made it hard for me to care.
Which is a pity since I tend to enjoy both adventure games and indie games.
Dunno, maybe on sale, but I already spent too much money this month and there are still games that I want. This one just got pushed terribly back :(
16/10/2009 at 12:23 The Sombrero Kid says:
actually i agree with you there, i probably would’ve payed £11 for this in the summer, but as it stands i’ve got the void and borderlands winging thier way to me and i’m not even bored of batman or RE5
16/10/2009 at 11:35 Owen says:
Blimey, this is turning into a rather expensive month. However, the flip side of that is it must therefore be a GREAT month for gaming.
Hurrah!!
Utterly gorgeous game though. Wonderful to see such talented artists showing their work off like this.
16/10/2009 at 11:55 Nero says:
Guess I will get it really soon, so looking forward to it. And I like that image with the band getting their instruments back, the drummer looks so happy :)
16/10/2009 at 12:26 Lewis says:
I fear the reply system may fail me here, so FAO John, RE: difficulty:
No, because using the hints systems felt like an organic process that was supposed to happen. And, indeed, was intended that way – Amanita have spoken about it in a few interviews. It’s all woven together as very much part of the game itself. As Xercies says, it’s not like alt-tabbing out to use a walkthrough, because it’s in the game, vaguely contextualised by the game world and poses a superficial challenge in itself just to use it.
In other words, it’s a system that alters the nature of the game and makes it easier as a result, but it’s still within the confines of what you’re supposed to do.
16/10/2009 at 12:29 Lewis says:
(Actually, I did find it reasonably difficult. But in a neat, challenging, fair way. And never once was it frustrating. I guess I’m used to people bringing up difficulty only when there’s been a specific problem with it.)
16/10/2009 at 13:12 Lilliput King says:
@Sombrero Kid: Hooray! None of that really matters for a 2d adventure that would run on an iphone though, does it?
Also, does anyone know if the steam version comes with the soundtrack?
16/10/2009 at 13:27 bill says:
Loved samorost. Bit worried about it being too much like a point and click adventure game though. P&Cs always annoy me by making obvious solutions obscure and fiddly…
what i liked about samorost was i could ejoy solving the puzzle without worrying that i was doing th right thing, but in the wrong way. As such, having to be in the right area sounds a bad idea.
But the idea of a mini-game to access the hints system is AWESOME. And that should alleviate all the possible frustrations of P&C games, but without feeling too cheap.
I think i might give it a go.
16/10/2009 at 13:50 Taillefer says:
I find it a slightly odd perspective on the hints system not counting because it’s part of the game. It’s like using the suggest move in chess then claiming the AI is too easy. At least, in my opinion.
I don’t seem to have my email yet. I want to talk about owls and jazz robots!
16/10/2009 at 14:03 Taillefer says:
Okay, so there’s a delay with getting the download links to some of those who pre-ordered.
From the forums:
“please be patient we are still sending – it’s more problematic then we thought but everybody should have the email with the download links today. we really appreciate you have pre-ordered the game earlier as it helped us to finish it. thanks!”
16/10/2009 at 14:14 Igor Hardy says:
The most difficult adventure game I played in a long time (maybe too difficult at times). Also, lots of great stuff in it. The fan puzzle has blown me away (no pun intended).
16/10/2009 at 14:37 abhishek says:
Pre-ordered on Steam, can’t wait to play this. Although going by Steam’s recent track record, it will probably be quite a while before they unlock it. Can anyone who has already got the game mention what the download size is?
16/10/2009 at 14:53 KilgoreTrout XL says:
Cool. I really enjoyed the demo.
16/10/2009 at 15:07 Lugribossk says:
Looks like there’s a bit of a pricing difference between the various download places as usual, at least while it’s still a preorder with discount for some of them
Direct from the developers: 20$
Steam: 13,2€ (=20$) discounted, 17€ (=25$) normally
Gamersgate: 15€ (=22$)
Direct2Drive: 15$ discounted, 20$ normally
Impulse: 15$ discounted, 20$ normally
Steam is nice and all, but would it kill them to stop cheating on the currency conversions?
16/10/2009 at 18:01 Fede says:
To add:
pre-order from developers was 17$, which was around 12€
16/10/2009 at 15:52 Sam says:
Damn it. Now I need to go and buy this.
16/10/2009 at 16:37 Mike_in_Akron_Ohio_USA says:
Oh this is good, really really good stuff. I’m not a puzzle game fan but I just played the demo and
it’s fantastic… for $20 U.S. it is a steal.
This game should be a GOTY contender hands down
16/10/2009 at 16:39 JM says:
James Pond!
Now I feel old :(
16/10/2009 at 19:27 Στέλιος says:
James Pond 2: Robocod was better. Especially the soundtrack. heh.
16/10/2009 at 16:51 malkav11 says:
I found the puzzles in Samorost obtuse and frustrating, and that was with not having to move to see hotspots. I’m extremely dubious that I will enjoy Machinarium’s puzzles. But that art is worth $15.
16/10/2009 at 17:08 Gotem says:
I wanted to like it, but it was really frustrating, only been able to pass the first screen without checking the hint book
And that was after figuring out that you could shoot in the mini-game
and then finding out that you could control it with the buttons and spacebar.
and kept pressing the right mouse button used to it being a shortcut to the inventory only to find the flash player menu.
It does really look beautiful, but managed to turn me into an angry adventuregame man in just a small demo.
16/10/2009 at 17:11 Pags says:
I really want to play this but my pre-order download is taking forever and a day. Should’ve pre-ordered on Steam I guess.
16/10/2009 at 17:24 Lambchops says:
Almost wish i’d bought this off Steam rather than preordering direct. I want instant robot awesomeness and I can’t get that at 10.8 kB/s
I’m glad this game has been getting good reviews – I was sure I’d love it anyway and it’s just making me anticipate it all the more.
10.8 kb/s – at the very least I’d epect that to be accompanied by the old fashioned internet dialing noises!
16/10/2009 at 17:30 abhishek says:
The game just unlocked on Steam. Downloading at max speed now :)
To answer my earlier question, the download is 345mb.
16/10/2009 at 17:38 Lambchops says:
5% of 1 file – 8.6 kb/s – 11 h remaining. :(
16/10/2009 at 17:43 abhishek says:
Ouch :(
I guess their servers are getting hit really hard with all the people downloading right now. Hopefully the load will ease up soon and speeds increase.
16/10/2009 at 18:52 Pags says:
Okay this is just fully ridiculous. At this rate I’ll be playing the same time tomorrow. 2D Boy had the right idea when they sent links out to people based on when they ordered; even though you had to wait, at least when you got your link you knew you’d actually be able to download it in a reasonable amount of time and it meant people didn’t all flock on to the server at once.
Watching this download slug along at 8.7 kb/s at best is making me cranky.
16/10/2009 at 19:01 K says:
I pre-ordered and downloaded from “unofficial sources” because they still haven’t even sent me the download link. I feel a little guilty, but I have paid. Got it in less than an hour.
And to balance out the negativity: it’s an adorable little gem of a game.
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16/10/2009 at 19:27 Lewis says:
They’ve posted a statement and apology on their website, and have temporarily closed the forums to free up server space. Guess they didn’t expect such a huge uptake of digital-downloadin’…
16/10/2009 at 19:31 Στέλιος says:
I really really like the style and atmosphere. But the last screen in the demo with the little ore trolley got me worried. I worked out that I was supposed to derail it, but I could not work out that I had to then grab it.
It just did not seem possible. I checked the hint system,. it described the same. I tried and tried and tried, at some point I *somehow* managed to grab it. I am not sure what I did – did I miss it by a pixel initially? Was it a timing issue? Not sure. But that was enough to make me feel like pixel hunting AND exact timing would make me hate it. Which is a pity.
Anyone else had such an experience or is it that I am just an adventure game big girl’s blouse (always possible, I guess)?
16/10/2009 at 20:20 Lewis says:
I can’t work out what you mean here. You OH MY GOD SPOILERS
derail the cart, it flops over and smashes. You hop on the wheels, nudge the railing against the lever, and off you go.
THERE ARE NOT ANY SPOILERS ANY MORE
Isn’t that what happened to you? Or are we talking about something different?
16/10/2009 at 20:51 Taillefer says:
It sounds like you found some buggy way of doing it, as that puzzle doesn’t need either pixel hunting or exact timing. I mean, the truck is static once it’s derailed, it doesn’t require you to try and try again.
Did you grab the truck as it was rolling by, or something? Because that’s all I can think of that would require precise timing. And that’s a bug if it works. There’s a much easier way.
23/10/2009 at 14:12 Harmen says:
You can put the de-rail thing on either of the rails, but it only works in your advantage if you put it on the correct one. Does that solve it?
Wonderfull game, and I don’t even _like_ point’nclick adventures!
16/10/2009 at 19:36 airtekh says:
Sold.
Nice review John.
16/10/2009 at 20:19 Peter says:
You don’t have to grab the ore truck at all; you have to derail one of the carts, find your method of locomotion and then get another truck to push you..
16/10/2009 at 20:40 Richard says:
There is no reason why you can’t do right clicking in Flash, the author can disable the default Flash menu if they want to.
25/10/2009 at 19:51 Kakksakkamaddafakka says:
It might have something to do with that fact that there are settings in that menu that sometimes are needed to fix a bug (Flash is HW-accelerated by default, the devs tell you to shut it off via the menu). Maybe this also could have been fixed, but hey, I’m sure they’ll change it in the upcoming patch.
16/10/2009 at 20:53 Taillefer says:
Oh, John! The owl! Tehehe.
16/10/2009 at 21:06 Heliocentric says:
3 games now cry baby.
16/10/2009 at 21:25 some guy says:
how the hell do you get the yellow thing hanging from above ? the one you use to derail the ore trolley
16/10/2009 at 21:45 Lewis says:
See what you can reach if you squish down.
16/10/2009 at 22:32 Dominus says:
ok, how do you get the second light bulb for the pentagram minigame? :B
17/10/2009 at 01:10 Taillefer says:
You don’t actually need it. Try making the pattern without it, although it doesn’t look very even.
16/10/2009 at 23:13 Lambchops says:
Nice of them to apologise. Plus it can only be a good thing when they haven’t anticipated such high demand for their game.
Still; since I last posted I’m now at 48%, 8.7 kb/s, 4hs 26 min remaining!
16/10/2009 at 23:56 neems says:
Damn it, am I the only person who completely fails at noughts and crosses? I’m gonna be pissed off if I can’t progress because of it.
17/10/2009 at 00:19 Lewis says:
Man. That was an absolute beast of a puzzle. I found the best way was to try work your opponent in a few places across the board, with the eventual aim to have four adjacent bolts in two separate parts of the board, meaning the other guy has to pick and choose, but will ultimately lose on the next move.
17/10/2009 at 01:18 neems says:
Got it in the end, using a sprt of grid pattern thing. On the plus side, what a band!
17/10/2009 at 01:47 John Walker says:
I found the best way was to let my housemate Graham have a go, who got it really quickly. I’ll lend him out to anyone who needs him.
17/10/2009 at 01:04 Pags says:
Okay finally got it a few hours ago, absolutely love it. Not quite so cranky anymore.
17/10/2009 at 01:17 marxeil says:
I just got this from GamersGate. I can’t find those MP3s. Possibly they are encrypted or something?
17/10/2009 at 01:49 John Walker says:
Sorry – I say it at the end, but not in the middle, that it comes with the mp3s when bought directly from Amanita. I’ve amended the post. Sorry for any confusion.
17/10/2009 at 20:55 Taillefer says:
All the music is in the “Machinarium\11″ directory. But with 000 and 001 extensions.
01010001.001 is the robots. :P
17/10/2009 at 01:23 kulak says:
I think £15 is just out of a reasonable price for this game.
Admittedly there’s a lot of artwork gone into it, but the same can be said for Samrost 1 and 2. Also as a linear puzzle game, replayability is limited, and I tend to burn through these kind of games in one or two sittings.
So I can’t really justify £5 an hour for gameplay.
At £10 I would have snapped it right up after playing the demo, but I think I’ll wait for a Steam sale where it at some point will undoubtedly be going for some ridiculously small amount.
25/10/2009 at 19:56 Kakksakkamaddafakka says:
I’d rather play £40 for this game than any other shitty so-called “AAA” game out there.
It’s more than worth it.
17/10/2009 at 01:41 Mahmoth says:
Yep, thoroughly stuck on that one. Can’t figure out a way of splitting his attention without getting blocked at the last moment or missing his setup for a five.
17/10/2009 at 01:50 Mahmoth says:
Agh, buggered up the reply, there. Stuck on five-in-a-row, as might be obvious.
17/10/2009 at 03:20 Robin says:
I don’t regret buying Machinarium at all, but the demo is a bit deceptive. What with it not featuring any of the pointless, obnoxious Christmas cracker puzzles that intermittently drain all the joy out of the full game.
17/10/2009 at 13:18 Marcus says:
You can disable the menu but that’s it, you can’t do right-clicking in flash. It’s just not possible.
17/10/2009 at 13:47 Kakksakkamaddafakka says:
Isn’t this game out on various shady sites?
I don’t see the harm in using other means to download it if you’ve payed for it. Not only does it translate to you being able to play the game faster (without any damage done to the financial situation of the developer), but you’ll also spare the Machinarium download servers the traffic, meaning other people will get the game faster as well.
17/10/2009 at 17:41 Lambchops says:
It got downloaded nicely overnight and it is indeed as lovely as good have been expected.
Sometimes it’s tough knowing exactly what you want to be doing next but a few minutes wandering the beautifully drawn world and i’ll figure it out.
Connect 5 was no problem for me at all. It was just a case of slightly extending the type of strategy used to win a game of noughts and crosses (though obviously a little trickier – a 19 year okd should be able to easily remember the moves which make noughts and crosses impossible to lose!).
I just love all the animations for each action – they always bring a smile to my face. The dancing in particular was so cute!
17/10/2009 at 18:01 Theory says:
I’m torn between feeling glad that I got it on Steam so had a smooth download, and feeling guilty that I got it on Steam instead of direct from the developers, losing free access to the soundtrack in the process. Was that worth the 60p?
On the bright side, you can find the URLs to download six of the game’s tracks in the Machinarium RSS feed… ;-)
And of course it’s a beautiful little game. A somewhat random ending, but it would be churlish to complain!
17/10/2009 at 18:35 VelvetFistIronGlove says:
I’m sorry to say that Machinarium left me cold. While many aspects of the artwork were delightful (particularly the owl), so many of the puzzles were completely incongruous, even when I had solved them by trying-everything-on-everything-else (fortunately a limited set, as *most* puzzles still had all their required items on the same screen) that I spent most of the game feeling frustrated.
There was one particularly annoying puzzle, where I had to fill an engine with oil to power it. I had in my possession an empty container that I had previously used to transport oil, but it inexplicably could not be used in this instance. And the solution to the puzzle was completely nonsensical.
In the end, I regret paying 11.whatever for the Steam preorder; don’t think it’s worth above a fiver.
17/10/2009 at 20:10 Dracko says:
Well, if you’ll recall, said container had only enough oil to, well, oil the joints on a wheelchair, and then was handed back to you empty to fill with sunflower oil. And that puzzle and the one following were delightful.
It’s one thing to have a legitimate gripe, quite enough to not be paying attention.
18/10/2009 at 00:08 VelvetFistIronGlove says:
spoiler warning:
Well, judging from its size, compared to the amount flowing through the hose, it held about 1/3 of what was required to fill the tank with oil.
Boiling a condenser will not yield a flexible hose, but just a hot condenser, unchanged in shape. The only reason I was able to solve that puzzle was that there was so little to use. I think such a nonsensical puzzle (it was not alone!) is a legitimate gripe.
Anyway, I didn’t enjoy it overly. I’m glad many of you do.
25/10/2009 at 20:04 Kakksakkamaddafakka says:
I finished the game without being stuck in one place more than a few minutes (the one exeption is the tic-tac-toe game), without using any hints whatsoever.
To be honest, all my friends are also racing through this game without any problems.
I’m not saying you’re an idiot or anything, but if you don’t like puzzles, adventure games probably aren’t for you, and your critique isn’t really relevant for most people (I’m thinking most people like puzzles, but I might be wrong about that, of course).
17/10/2009 at 19:04 Letterman says:
Just realized that all files in the game’s directory are named in binary. Awesome!
17/10/2009 at 21:09 IvanHoeHo says:
The rest of the game is great, so far, but playing connect-4 was one of the least fun things I’ve had to do this week.
Am I supposed to beat him multiple times? I did once and got what I need, but doesn’t seem to be going anywhere with the rest of the puzzles.
17/10/2009 at 21:41 Dracko says:
No, you only need to make him flip his lid once.
You guys should play connect 5 more.
17/10/2009 at 21:55 Trezoristo says:
As someone else remarked earlier: The music sits in the ’11′ folder in your Steam directory. Simply change the extension of the files in there to ‘mp3′ and you’re ready to go!
17/10/2009 at 22:46 Lambchops says:
I played Connect 5 a second time just to see if I was lucky or something. If anything I won quicker. It's not hard folks! I'll admit to finding some other puzzles difficult but that one was a breeze.
17/10/2009 at 23:49 Anthony says:
I’ve been playing this game all day, and I’ve certainly fallen in love with it. The only frustration I’ve had so far is at the stupid “green triangle” puzzle.
18/10/2009 at 08:19 Mike R says:
MORE SPOILERS OMG
The tricky part here is that you can drop it on either rail, but only one will lead to the desired outcome. The problem, for me, was that when I saw that I could drop it on the rail closest to the robot, I assumed that was the only place I could drop it, and couldn’t figure out what to do about the cart flying off the screen.
This is a great example of assumptions based on adventure game tropes coming back to bite me. Of course he should be able to drop the ramp on either rail, but I’ve run into so many arbitrary limitations that apparently I’ve started to come up with my own.
18/10/2009 at 23:06 scaj says:
im a little over half way trough the game and i have passed the owl, and though i agree whit every thing else in this review the owl didnt do anything special for me, it might be because i bought it off steam and they removed something special about it, but i really dont see why anyone would want to talk about it (the owl, not the game as a whole)
19/10/2009 at 09:13 eah says:
Only thing is, music from the game is just 160kbps, the soundtrack is 256kbps and not quite the same. Although missing some tracks, oddly…I had to use the game files to get the robot jazz trio track, for example.
19/10/2009 at 16:08 ironanno says:
Bit of a SPOILER here but:
In the room at the top of the tower in the robot city the big headed robot whose brain had been set back meaning he can only slobber. That coupled with the bubble telling how one of the big bad robots destroyed the poor robot’s brain made the sound he made even more sad. That was probably the saddest moment in the game for me. Probably partly because it comes out of nowhere.
20/10/2009 at 01:19 lintman says:
Just finished it last night. I thought it was cute and worth the $14, but wasn’t as enchanted with it as Walker’s review is.
Some thoughts (potential mild spoilers):
- The Jazz trio puzzles and music were my favorite parts of the game. The prison bits were probably second-favorite.
- I enjoyed the animations a lot – lots of clever ones like the dancing to the music and sliding down railings, etc.
- The inability to know what you can interact with unless you were next to it was annoying and set my frustration level high enough to send me to the hint system far sooner than would otherwise be necessary.
. The turn-off-the-water valve puzzle is just my sort of thing, but its behavior didn’t seem to be always consistent and I sadly ended up resorting to trial and error to solve it.
- I enjoyed the kitchen screen a lot, , but the popcorn bit didn’t quite have the same effect on me as on John Walker. The owl was cute, but didn’t do much for me, either. I liked the cat bit better.
- Annoyingly, as part of my explorations I returned to the kitchen and was no longer able to exit the screen because the earlier procedure was no longer allowed for some reason, so I had to reload a save.
- The Connect 5 wasn’t so bad – I beat it on the first try and then beat it again on a second go-round to see if anything else happened. For me, the sliding bead puzzles and the bracket puzzles in arcade were the terrible ones.
20/10/2009 at 01:47 Lambchops says:
I agree with Lintman; having finished the game this evening (slightly before a much procastinated essay for uni showing I've got my priorities sorted!) the sliding bead and arcade bracket puzzles are the worst ones.
Well in particular it was the top bead one and one of the middle bracke ones that took me quite a while today – the rest of them weren't quite as bad I was just suffering mental blocks for a while particularly with those bloody beads.
22/10/2009 at 22:41 Yearner says:
I played the demo, was absolutely enthralled and immediately bought the game. I really enjoyed it, about to the point where you give the lady her dog and go into the city. But from there on… TOO MANY DAMN LOGIC PUZZLES! The “task” challenges where you have to interact with the people and objects to get something done are great, and filled with a lot of humor which makes the game really fun to play, just like Samorost. But it really sucks that the flow of gameplay is constantly interrupted with logic puzzles. It feels like the developers thought the game was too easy and then just threw in all the puzzles just to make it more difficult. In my mind, this spoils an otherwise great game.
22/10/2009 at 22:44 Railick says:
I'm stuck on trying to beat the old coot at connect 5. I've lost about 100 games so far.
To my great surprise I actaully figured out the sliding green and red bead on circles puzzle very quickly.
Shadowcat “It hammers at my retinas like an evil woodpecker of pure energy”
23/10/2009 at 14:21 abhishek says:
I couldn’t actually ‘figure out’ how to do the green/red beads puzzle. I tried for a little while but then I gave up and started randomly spinning the wheels them around until they fell into place. Definitely one of the more random puzzles in the game for me…
Completed the game in 7.3 hours according to Steam. Lovely game, although I wish it would have been longer.
02/11/2009 at 04:11 birdy says:
How do I fill the oil can? I can’t oil the chair to see what’s down the manhole.
02/11/2009 at 05:27 li says:
i think its over priced, i think i will wait fo some kind of promotion
16/11/2009 at 10:46 redbaron says:
It’s an adorable game. Definitely one of the games with best art. The story could have been a little bit more detailed. Tell us a little bit more about this brotherhood, about the city itself and the robots. But never the less – there are so many nice things in here. The only part I didn’t like is when I had to play the Gomoku. I won it totally by accident. It was frustrating. I’ve never been good at tic-tac-toe and when it comes to a game that demands from me to put 5 in a line…Oh, well. I swet a lot and frankly I was about to give up when I hit the jackpot. :P Another puzzle that got me sweating was at the end when I had to line those balls in order to open the cabinet. Otherwise all other puzzles are well-thought, logical and all in all not difficult. There are some nice extras like when you’re on the square you can go at the edge and break the light bulbs on the wall. Very nice to do some vandalism from time to time. :D The little robot is really adorable. I laughed from the bottom of my heart when it started shaking his bottom while the band was playing. ^^
Definitely a worthy game and even a jem as many call it. I’m a huge fan of the point & click adventures and I’m sad and happy that Machinarium came out. Happy – because it’s almost perfect! Sad – because I realized how neglected is the genre in the last 10 years or so. Most titles are like this – indie games. It’s really sad.
22/11/2009 at 19:39 Josine says:
The owl is making me crazy! :’(
18/12/2009 at 16:28 Vicky says:
I LOVE this game. Like the previous author, I agree; this is a really neglected genre – what with the influx of hidden object games and over scripted boring ‘games’ that make you feel like you are working rather than playing.
Machinarium is a game for those who like point and click graphic adventures with good puzzles and story and beauty and humour…and randomness: you are not made to feel like you must perform a certain task at a certain. There is always so much to explore and so many thought bubbles that pop up when you least expect them that relate to some aspect of the main characters past you just want to be there…IN THE GAME. Absolute genius.
18/12/2009 at 16:29 Vicky says:
I LOVE this game. Like the previous author, I agree; this is a really neglected genre – what with the influx of hidden object games and over scripted boring ‘games’ that make you feel like you are working rather than playing.
Machinarium is a game for those who like point and click graphic adventures with good puzzles and story and beauty and humour…and randomness: you are not made to feel like you must perform a certain task at a certain time. There is always so much to explore and so many thought bubbles that pop up when you least expect them that relate to some aspect of the main characters past you just want to be there…IN THE GAME. Absolute genius.