Machinarium

Masterpiece. Undervalued and overused a word it might be, but here it is exactly the correct one to use. The animation is delightful; the music sublime; the ideas ingenius and the characters deeper than I would ever have thought possible. So, that’s one puzzle of Machinarium. The rest of the game is pretty good too.

If Osmos were an adventure game, it’d probably be a little something like this. Every scene and interaction is heavily reliant on the ambience that flows throughout the entire game: it’s slow, steady, monumentally sad and absolutely wonderful. The speed of the game is similar – a profound feeling of a lack of a rush, despite certain spoilable plot elements. It was oddly jarring, and very effective, when late on there was a sudden time-constrained puzzle; and another with such an emotionally powerful situation surrounding it that it was frustrating to allow it to continue as I frantically searched for the answer to the puzzle.

Having an appropriate score to reinforce the pace and message of the game is so utterly important for all the same reasons the music of silent movies was. Characters never speak, communicating through simple thought bubbles containing sketched images. This is also the only way in which we learn the past of the worlds cutest nameless robot protaganist and why he lands so unceremoniously in a scrap heap at the beginning of the game. It is a brilliantly told tale and the character’s interaction with you feels unique in that he is in control. There is no “I can’t do that” or “I don’t understand”, but a short dismissive sound and a shake of the head. It says, simply, if you want him to walk through that falling water, you will find him a god damn umbrella.

Believe me when I say that that umbrella, waterfall and surrounding area will be utterly beautiful. The art is simply gorgeous – every character an image that portrays their personality and needs instantly; every incidental item or detail perfectly placed to heighten the sense of a real world. This is enhanced further by animation that really couldn’t be better, expressing the emotional state of characters in a way that is central both to the storytelling and the puzzling.

The gameplay itself is a refresher course in good puzzling, at least for the most part. With the main character’s ability to change his height, there’s a higher level of complexity to deal with. Mostly this is used effectively, just another variable in the complex equations. There is a little bit of item harvest, use everything with everything, experiment until it works silliness; but mostly the logic is sound. One sticks out as a highlight – where usually you attempt to make everyone in an adventure game happy (usually so that they give you things), there is one puzzle where you make someone so angry they quite literally fall to pieces.

Also worth a mention are the mini-games. While playing connect 5 is an exercise in frustration, the rest are a lot of fun. Throwbacks to the origins of gaming such as Space Invaders as well as more original concepts in the form of actually fun box-shoving. In tandem with this is the simply brilliant hint system, which works as two stages. First you can simply click a button on the interface to get one of those beautiful thought bubbles showing simply what the end result of the scene should be. This I used regularly, as a nudge in the right direction. On top of this is a complete solution, which can be accessed by playing a simple but time consuming side-scrolling shooter mini-game. Both of these systems are well implemented, but the fact that they have to be there may be a nod to the slight obscurity in some of the puzzles. Open areas can seem a little more confused than the single-screen puzzles that populate the early game, but they also allow the astounding art and characterisation to come to the fore.

Another odd concept is the interaction range. Basically, you are unable to determine objects that you can pick up or fiddle with unless you are standing next to them. At first this may seem like an annoyance, but it is mostly invalidated by there only being a certain number of places in each screen that can be stood in – if you click anywhere, the nearest is selected. This, I assume, is part of the limitations that are applied due to the technology behind the game. Being entirely built in Flash has resulted in some problems: larger resolutions aren’t supported so the game window ends up being very small and any sort of right click functionality is removed.

These really are the tiniest of niggles. If you allow yourself to be taken in by this world, it is one of the best gaming experiences of the year. It is particularly excellent to see the classic point and click adventure imagined in such a way and being so brilliant at the same time. Play this game, love it, or admit to your friends and family that you truly have no soul.

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