Key events
27th March 2012
23rd August 2011
8th April 2011
16th October 2009
28th September 2009
The people behind Machinarium don't just make crazy video games
They make crazy music videos, too.
Czech Republic studio Amanita Design is best known for making beautiful point and click adventures Machinarium, Botanicula and Samorost, but it does more than develop video games.
Machinarium on Vita is set for release next week in Europe
Priced at €5.99.
Amanita's fan-favourite point-and-click steampunk adventure Machinarium finally has a set release date for European Vitas on 1st May, Sony has announced. It's priced at €5.99.
Machinarium due on Vita this month
Touted as the best version yet.
Last September Amanita Design released its cult classic steampunk point-and-click adventure Machinarium onto the PS3 and now it's bringing its fan favourite onto the Vita come 26th March for $6.99 (about Ł5).
Several indie devs rally together against publisher Lace Mamba
Allegedly refused to pay devs, sold games illegally and came up with hilarious excuses.
Indie developers Amanita Design, Colibri Games and Daedalic Entertainment have come forward claiming that UK publisher Lace Mamba has failed to pay them and has made some shady deals selling games in territories it had no authority to.
Machinarium coming to PSN next month
Someone get that man a cookie!
Darkly beautiful point-and-click adventure Machinarium is coming to European PSN next month, Sony has announced.
UPDATE: Dev reveals Sony yet to confirm game.
UPDATE: Machinarium developer Amanita Design has told our Czech Republic cousins at Eurogamer.cz that a Vita version of the game is yet to be confirmed by Sony.
GOG.com relaunched to sell newer PC games
Drops the Good Old Games meaning.
What began as Good Old Games, GOG.com, has relaunched to sell new PC games alongside old.
Therefore, the Good Old Games meaning will fade away. The company will be known instead by the acronym-turned-company-title GOG.com. "It doesn't matter what G, O and G stand for," explained a post on GOG.com. "Gee Oh Gee dot com stands for high-quality, DRM-free gaming, each week with bigger and newer games."
Trine and The Whispered World are examples of 'new' games available right now. Legend of Grimrock is out 11th April. Spacechem, Machinarium and Darwinia are "coming soon". Apparently, more than 20 indie and new games have been signed for release in "the next few months".
The hitchhiker's guide to videogame adventuring.
Introduction
Making an XBLA Game: The Inside Story
Contracts, exclusivity and outsourced Avatar items.
Canadian developer Brian Provinciano spent two months negotiating his contract with Microsoft to get Retro City Rampage on Xbox Live Arcade. It was, to say the least, a tough process - and one that he could have done without. It delayed the creation of the game, but in the end he thought f*** it, and signed on the bottom line.
PlayStation 3 Machinarium "the ultimate version"
Wii U "looks promising" for Samorost 3.
The PlayStation 3 version of enchanting point and click game Machinarium is the "ultimate version", developer Amanita Design has said.
Botanicula out "around" February 2012
Samorost 3 heading to consoles, maybe.
Enchanting point and click game Botanicula will launch "around" February 2012, Czech Republic independent developer Amanita Design has said.
iOS Machinarium is iPad 2 exclusive
Cult indie puzzler too big for iPhone, iPad.
The iOS port of PC indie point-and-click favourite Machinarium will be exclusive to the iPad 2 when it hits the App Store next month.
As reported by Pocket Gamer, the game is too beefy for the first iPad or iPhone 4, and developer Amanita Design refuses to cut content to squeeze it in.
"Unfortunately, the game is performance and memory demanding, so we decided not to make any compromises and make it available only for iPad 2," explained studio founder Jakub Dvorský.
Machinarium coming to iPad this year
Point and click port "almost finished".
An iPad version of acclaimed indie PC adventure Machinarium arrives on the App Store later this year, creator Jakub Dvorský has confirmed.
Dishwasher! Machinarium! Faction! Chime! Cell!
The sun's shining. The sky is blue. That can mean only one thing: it's time to reduce your risk of skin cancer and sit inside and play games until your eyeballs bleed.
This week there were way too many releases to do the download scene full justice, so we'll try to get to G-Rev's shooter Strania next week, as well as the likes of Dino D-Day (Dinosaurs! In World War II!), Dungeon Hunter and the various PSP Minis and DSiWare nuggets that invariably look rubbish at first glance, but turn out to be rather good.
So, queue up those downloads, draw the blinds and ignore the warmest start to April in living memory.
Machinarium coming to PlayStation 3
Microsoft not interested, claims creator.
2009 PC point and click adventure game Machinarium will launch on PlayStation 3.
Machinarium dev reveals new games in UK
Jakub Dvorský hits Nottingham.
Jakub Dvorský, the Czech creator of superb 2009 point and click adventure game Machinarium, will unveil his follow-up work at the GameCityNights festival in Nottingham on 25th March.
VideoHumble Indie Bundle 2 supports charity
Five top titles, pay what you want.
Five top titles, pay what you want.
Machinarium skips XBLA for PSN
MS declined to publish indie game.
Delightfully difficult point-and-click adventure Machinarium has been turned down by Microsoft, and so skipped a potential Xbox Live Arcade release in favour of PlayStation Network.
Scrapheap challenge.
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.
PC demos for Machinarium, Risen
You should definitely try one of them.
PC owners get free tasters for hand-drawn point-and-click adventure Machinarium and unlovely role-playing game Risen today.
Mid-October on Steam and others.
Amanita Design has said Machinarium will be released on 16th October for PC.
The beautiful point-and-click adventure is due out via the official site, Steam and Impulse for under $20 (thanks Kotaku).
You can read about it and why we're excited in our recent Machinarium hands-on preview.
The tin man finds a heart.
Machinarium, let's face it, is not a particularly friendly word. It conjures up images of grotty workshops, of automated slaughterhouses, and rusting, febrile dreamscapes full of the screech of metal on metal. Well, it does for me. I have some issues with visualisation.
Tomorrow's stars today.
The Penny Arcade Expo 2009 has announced the collection of indie games that will be crowned The PAX 10.
