Machinarium Review
Scrapheap challenge.
Version tested: PC
Machinarium is a point-and-click adventure. No, really. It's a point and click adventure. The old-fashioned sort, where one screen can keep you stumped all weekend, where having a notepad to hand is a good idea and where every door and hatchway is guarded by some fiendish puzzle. As amusing as Telltale's Sam & Max games have been, a few hours in Machinarium's arcane steampunk world makes you realise just how far the genre has wandered from its traditionally ruthless roots.
It's the tale of an adorable little robot, cast out from a mechanical city by accident. He must find his way back home, rescue his girlfriend and prevent a gang of robot hoodlums from setting off a bomb. Inventory puzzles are the game's main currency, but it has a refreshing disposable take on this old genre standard. Once a puzzle is overcome, items are automatically discarded, so there's none of the inventory bloat that other adventure games suffer from. It's a streamlined procession of smaller brain-teasing chunks which lead seamlessly into one another while keeping their mysteries neatly separated.
To begin with, the influence of Samorost - the earlier Flash game by creator Jakub Dvorsky - is hard to miss. Puzzles are restricted to just one screen, calling to mind the familiar truncated explore-and-click aesthetic of old, and it doesn't take long to work out the sequence of actions needed to shunt your robot pal a little closer to his goal.
Things soon open out though, and in doing so some of the game's oblique nature begins to act against it. Having snuck past the gates, and been unceremoniously incarcerated by the bullying robot bad guys, escape leads you into the city proper where puzzles begin to stretch across multiple screens, piling on top of one another like waffles. Working out where to start unravelling the sequence of cause and effect becomes more of a problem, and the game's strict limits on what you can investigate make progress even harder.
Unlike other point-and-clickers, where you can mouse over everything on-screen to see what can be interacted with, Machinarium only lets you tinker with things that are within reach. Your robot chum is flexible as well, capable of scrunching down to floor level or expanding upwards to reach higher locations. Checking each location for useful features therefore becomes a question of painstaking exploration, making sure that every possible combination of position and height has been exhausted in order to clear each location of every usable trinket.

Gaining access to this foundry is one of the first puzzles you encounter.
There is, thankfully, a two-tier hint system available. The first option - a lightbulb icon - simply gives you a broad clue as to what you should be trying to do. Like all in-game information, it's presented as a doodle with no further explanation.
If that's not enough, you can access the walkthrough book, which spells out the exact steps required in a sepia comic strip. This information must be earned, however, by playing through a short mini-game in which you guide a key through a Defender-esque cave to a keyhole. It's hardly taxing, but it is intrusive enough to make you think twice about reaching for the answers too quickly. I found that sometimes it would kill you as soon as you started, while other times the key would be left floating in an empty void with no end in sight. If that's punishment for abusing the system, it's never explained.
Such helping hands are a luxury in the early stages, but become harder to resist as the puzzles begin to overlap. Often, checking the basic hint offering is the best way to find the start of a puzzle thread, rather than traipsing around working out which of the numerous puzzles available can be tackled first. When the puzzle in question involves putting a cat up a didgeridoo, it's clear that finding the solution through trial and error won't be achievable for everyone.
For those who cry foul at such handholding, the walkthroughs do become a lot less foolproof the further you get into the game. They'll offer broad-stoke solutions but leave plenty of puzzling to fill in the blanks, so it's best not to get too attached to the lifeline they offer. While Machinarium Is happy to nudge you on the right track rather than let you leave in frustration, it also understands that the swell of pride that comes from beating a great adventure puzzle fair and square is one of gaming's most precious rewards, and shrewdly stops you from squandering it through lack of patience.
The game also loves to trip up your progress with more traditional puzzles. Along the way you'll be forced to dust off braincells to move pegs around, rotate coloured dots to fit a pattern and play leapfrog with arrow buttons. There's one of those sliding-block puzzles that you get in Christmas crackers, and even a protracted version of Connect 4 against a robot hustler.
The sheer variety of these puzzles is impressive, but there are times when the game seems a little too much in love with such devices. Unless you're a devoted fan of this sort of puzzle it can get frustrating to be making headway in the effortlessly lovely story, working your way through clever inventory quests, only to be stopped in your tracks and essentially made to solve the equivalent of a Rubik's Cube before you can continue.
At least you'll be treated to some gorgeous visuals while you scratch your head. The lo-fi Samorost vibe is unmistakable, but Machinarium has a much more consistent and tangible sense of place than its whimsically surreal predecessors. This is a world where things may be weird and offbeat (robot jazz, anyone?) but it all makes sense and follows a clear internal logic.
Your robot hero is an instantly likeable little chap, packed with personality despite never saying a word. Background details abound in the scenery, and there are lots of charming interactions that do nothing to further your game, but raise a smile nonetheless. Watching him strain to do a robot poo before sadly shaking his head, for example, or sliding gleefully down a handrail rather than trot down some stairs. Tim Burton's sketches are an obvious touchstone for the visual style, though I couldn't help but see the work of the wonderful Peter Firmin in its warm, hand-made textures.

This central location contains several interlinked puzzles - knowing which one to tackle first can be tricky, unless you ask for help.
The game doesn't bother to mask the fact that it's a simple Flash file, and there are clearly benefits to this low-tech approach. It has a tiny system footprint, it boots up almost instantly and you can resume play only a few seconds after double-clicking the desktop icon. There are downsides as well though. Right-clicking only brings up the Flash menu, so inventory manipulation can feel slightly long-winded. Rather than being able to return an item instantly, you need to manually drag it back up to the top menu bar and drop it.
Given that you'll be walking to each area of interest before experimenting with items, it's just enough to make getting stuck feel more frustrating than it needs to be. Navigation also feels a little basic, with no double-click to run somewhere and a tendency to lock your robot into a course that can't be cancelled should you click off-screen by accident. The game's unhurried pace is a pleasure in many ways, but isn't ideal when shuffling between locations searching for the way forwards.
These are far from deal-breaking complaints, although they are enough to keep Machinarium from reaching the top of the score tree where it belongs. Machinarium is a treat for the senses that demands more of your brain, a paradoxically gentle yet punishing riff on a genre that, until now, had been revived but sadly defanged for modern players.
8 / 10
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Comments (35) Latest comment 2 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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Great review btw.
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Might even hook it up to my TV, get Glovepie installed and play with with a Wii remote.
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Its ok as i'm in work now, but I hope i get it by 1pm (lunch) it would be nice to get to play this for an hour then. I can't wait!
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Indeed. The first paragraph is a clear indication that the author doesn't like point-and-click adventure games. By the end of the first page, my curiosity took the better of me and I glanced at the score. I was surprised it's 8.
As an avid fan of the genre, I'll most definitely pick this up.
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Both point and click adventure games, but whereas Axel was a steaming turd, Machinarium was instantly compelling and quite enchanting.
For me, it's a must buy.
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Before I thought Dan Whitehead got easily frustrated with games. now I'm convinced he is just extremely aprehensive (terrified) that he might get frustrated at some point.
It seems the first thing he ever does is checking whether the game has a minimap, hint system, suitable tutorials and general handholding all in place and only then, with a sigh of relief (if the case may be) get on with the rest of it (for the remaining third or so of the article).
Come on Dan. You can't walk into every review armed with your accessibility checklist, ready to start taking points away for every undocumented feature, hintless puzzle, slightly abstract mission objective.. relax, take your time, enjoy the bloody game!
and yes I'm still pissed about Risen
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After reading your critique of Mr Whitehead's skills I thought to myself - "I bet he's the guy who did the way-off-the-mark Deadly Creatures review".
Went and checked...
He did!
So by that measure your assessment must be pretty dead on!
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I guess Dan Whitehead and co are a running joke in the games industry at this point, still you reap what you sow.
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awesome
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thats one way to play it i guess, but not a very enjoyable one.
The joy comes from thinking about the situation, and taking the time to appreciate the beauty of the detailed backgrounds.
Music's ace, reminds me of Enos Music for Films
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You can get it on Mac as well.
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Didn't find it too difficult. The puzzles are basically mechanic and based on assembling things, which is my favourite approach on P&C adventures, to be honest.
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Got my link this morning, I'm sure yours is on the way.
It sure took its sweet time downloading. 5 hours for 355 MB! Reminded me of dial-up nightmares. It's here though, I'm not complaining. Actually, I cannot wait to go home and install it
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I'll be getting this for sure, as soon as I've finished Indy and the Fate of Atlantis.
I hope it runs on my EEEPC though, but if not it'll be on the desktop.
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Lovely visuals although sadly not full screen, which is annoying, but I appreciate the hand drawn art won't lend itself to arbitrary scaling. Unique and distinctive, and the audio is superb. Not sure that score is going to hold up for me personally, but it's nice to be using my brain again for a change.
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keep it to the bloody Risen comments eh?
With that out of the way Machinarium is lovely. Absolutely lovely. Great atmosphere, quality adventure game (with the only niggle i've met so far being the no right clicking to deselect an item - something which it seems is imprinted into my brain to keep doing. The animations of the robots are just so well done; the attention to detail in the art style is phenomenal and the little narrative thought bubbles are just charming.
A fitting cherry on the top of the lovely adventure game renaissance cake we've been treated to this year. It's been a long time since I could genuinly say that two of my favourites games (not sure if they're the top 2 yet - that will take further consideration) have been adventure games. The other being the completely different but equally brilliant Time Gentlemen Please.
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Runs very nicely on my dell mini. One download with: linux, PC and mac versions here: https://s ites.fastspring.com/amanitadesi... for just under £12 .......
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Nevertheless I am stuck in the Bar playng with OXO tic ac to. I think he cheats...? He wins all the time, even when he didn't make 5 tools in line.
I keep triyng since 3 days, folollowing advices with No results
It is so infuriating Could anybody help me. PLEASE ! ! !
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