John is our usual Amanita correspondent but he’s off on hollybobs so I get to poke about in the gorgeous world of Machinarium [official site] this time! The reason the eight-year-old game is back in our newsbox is because it’s swapping Adobe Flash for a custom engine. So far so technical. What does it actually mean?

WELL!

“It’s using DirectX and the game feels much smoother, but most importantly, Machinarium now plays in full screen, even on modern Full HD and 4K displays.”

This sounds DELICIOUS. Read the rest of this entry »

The makers of Samorost, Botanicula and Machinarium have announced a new game. It’s called Chuchel [official site] and judging by these two teasers it looks in keeping with the studio’s tradition of odd games with even odder names. We don’t have much else to go on yet, however, just a couple of short trailers showing off what I’m guessing is the grumpy protagonist. Come and enjoy his garbled ranting.
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It’s rather lovely when you learn of a tiny company consistently making splendid games is succeeding, rather than struggling to stay alive. Amanita Design, who RPS have championed for their witty, beautiful and smart adventure games since we launched, sent us some very interesting sales information about their robotic point-and-clicker, Machinarium [official site], after its four millionth sale.

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The journey of Samorost feels very much like the journey of designers Amanita. The first game in the series was a free quick-to-play web game built in Flash, but Samorost 3 [official site] – coming out on the 24th March – is a lengthy downloadable adventure following their astonishing Machinarium and Botanicula. From small beginnings, they’re now one of the most respected adventure teams around, and expectations are extremely high for the first full-length entry in the Samorost series. Expectations that looks rather likely to be met if the quality of the new trailer, below, is anything to go by.

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Amanita Design make some of the prettiest dang games around, and their Samorost games are especially lovely. They look like delicate, glowing paintings based on diddy stop-motion sets metal of scrap and thread, pebble and moss. Perhaps my favourite Amanita gameplace yet is one they’re showing in a wee new video from the upcoming Samorost 3 [official site], a forest scene which oh my giddy aunt I want to live in look:

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I’ll be danged if this new Samorost 3 [official site] trailer isn’t the most charming thing I’ve seen all week, and I see myself in the mirror every day (still single, ladies). We’ve been waiting so very long for the adventure game, and now we have this trailer to see and hear and news that it’ll launch in autumn or winter to know.

One might petulantly stomp their feet and pout that we’ve been longing for its loveliness for almost a decade now, but creators Amanita Design released Machinarium and Botanicula in that time so shhh settle down and enjoy the gentle exposition I wedged in with this paragraph.

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