Review: Machinarium

There wasn't much I was interested in purchasing (or hadn't already purchased this summer) in the recent Steam sale, but the indie point and click adventure game Machinarium caught my eye so I gave it a chance. Having just finished the game I would have to highly recommend it. The stylized sound and visuals are incredibly well done and made the game a delight to keep coming back to. The game has no text so the majority of the interaction is between the main character, the world, and the character's inventory. Any story movement or exposition is handled via animated thought balloons over characters head when you interact with them.  Functionally the game employs the classic adventure game mechanic of picking up items and combining them either with other items or objects in the world to solve puzzles. The variety of puzzles goes beyond that though, with a number more traditional single board-style puzzles or games and there are even a couple more modern arcade like puzzles/games as well. The difficulty ramps up fairly steadily and for the most part the game does a good job of giving the player enough cues to figure out what to do next. As with any adventure game, observation is key, but for those who fail to observe or who try and still can't get past a given puzzle, there are two layers of hints built into the game. The first is a simple one panel image for each area that illustrates the key goal or solution the player should be looking for. The second is a flat out walk through. The hints are accessed by pressing a button on the top right of the screen as is the walk through. The catch with the walk through however is that in order to unlock them, you need to play a quick side scrolling shooter game. The game is easy enough, to the point where you start to lament having to play it again when you get stuck, but I applaud the developers attempt to put a little game play into cheating. Somehow it doesn't make it feel so bad. My only regret with Machinarium is that there isn't more of it. I'd love to get lost in that world again for a much longer period of time.