Point-and-click your way to the ever-charming Machinarium

by Griffin McElroy on Oct 18th 2009 3:30PM

We know you're likely still occupied with the past week's pair of major blockbusters, but it'd be a shame if the release of a certain Small Wonder went unheralded by this blog. Enter: Machinarium, an impossibly charming, jaw-droppingly gorgeous adventure title for Windows, Mac and Linux which, after wooing us last month at PAX, is now available to purchase for a cool $20.

Not sure how you feel about hand-drawn adventure games featuring the misadventures of an adorable, mute robot? We suggest checking out the free demo of the game hosted on the game's official site. If you're still not enticed, we suggest getting a chest x-ray, because it sounds like there's a small chance that your heart is missing.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Source

Tags: adventure, amanita-design, demo, linux, mac, machinarium, robots

Reader Comments (42)

It's great to see adventure back in full speed.

Edit: It's great to see adventure games back in full speed.

It's cool, you were good the first time. : )

since yesterday.

The games art-style is interesting and its surprisingly challenging. A good buy.

Wait until you get to the later parts of the game. It starts to feel like my head is about to split. Wall-E's got nothing on this dude, that's for sure.

It looks marvelous but 20 bucks is a bit too steep; 15 would've been more tolerable, and 10 would've cemented my purchase. I'll still get it... soon.

Wait a couple months, I'm sure it will be half off on Steam anytime soon.

Pre-buy was only $15. Sorry you missed out. But as Steve says, there'll probably be a sale sometime down the road.

Pre-order was $17 bucks & the demo was amazing... just wish I didn't have to eat so I could use the money on more games!!

Stupid body and its "necessities."

Not cool dude.

you're an asshole

It looks nice and all, but $20 is more than I want to pay for it. $10, maybe even 15 I would go for it.

But this is Steam, I'll just wait for the inevitable sale.

The pre-order was 25% off.

That looks cool. The style reminds me of some sort of steampunk monty python sketch, or fantastic planet.

If you buy it from the dev's site you also get the soundtrack in mp3 format. Not sure if that applies to a Steam purchase of the game.

buy it on the site, not on steam
you get the amazing soundtrack for free!!!

hold strong.. wait for steam weekend deal..

looks very nice though.

Hmm... are all the puzzles isolated to their single room settings like in demo? Do puzzle pieces extend throughout the game's settings?

Because if not, this is more cute than it is a real game.

I love adventure games, but am wary these new iterations are mostly throwback and lack genuine substance. Closer to fashion statements than game design. The immediate walkthrough feature is already kind of unsettling (it defeats the purpose of the game).

Can any adventure fans out there attest to its quality?

It's good, very good. I'd say it's one of my favourite adventure games of all time, next to Myst and Monkey Island. Puzzles are confined to single rooms early in the game, but it quickly opens up and you'll have to explore the entire city to solve various puzzles.

The walkthrough feature doesn't ruin the game at all. If people get stuck, most will simply look for a walkthrough on the internet, so this is a way to help people move past an area they're stuck on without breaking the experience. And the walkthrough itself is brilliantly done. You'll only see a small set of illustrations showing what you need to do in order, and you only have access to the steps immediately related to the area of the game you're in.

Still, going alone without the walkthrough is encouraged, as you'll have to beat a side-scrolling minigame to gain access to it. There's also a less spoilerific "hint" button that can simply point you in the right direction.

Any possibility of an XBLA/PSN release?

You don't have a computer good enough to run a flash game? ;-P

It's more of a convenience thing, really. My PC is hooked up to the TV but I'm still yet to get a decent wireless keyboard, so I'm forced to sit right in front of the screen. Not good on a 52 inch!

Just hook up a 360 controller to your PC and use a program like Pinnacle Game Profiler to map keys to your gamepad and make your right analog stick act like a cursor.

Interesting - would the 360 chatpad work too? Would be awesome if it did.

No, the chatpad doesn't work in windows, sadly. You'd think MS would add support for it since they support the controller, the wired headset, and the wireless headset, but being Microsoft, they couldn't be bothered.

For cheap, you can also get a 15' USB extension cable from Monoprice for less than $2 (plus shipping). I got a couple to extend the range on my wired guitar and drumset for RockBand, also use them to run a keyboard out to the couch for other games/uses.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=103&cp_id=10303&cs_id=1030304&p_id=2895&seq=1&format=2

I just finished it a couple of hours ago. It's really addictive.
HeyYoMan the first few puzzles are isolated then it extends to several areas.

There will be a few moments of being stumped but persist it out and you'll get it eventually.

You tube already has the walkthrough videos if you're really stuck and you get clues in the game too.

As to the quality, it really polished. The art style is really nice and the puzzles are really well thought out.

Just try out the demo here http://machinarium.net/demo/

The $20 is a bit steep. I finished the game in a few hours but I was more than happy to pay because I would love to see more from this development team.

Great feedback.

Guess there's nothing left to do but DL it now.
That soundtrack bonus is quite the clincher, too.

Thanks

to be honest, i would've paid $20 for the soundtrack alone
thats how much i love the game =P

Sweet, it works on Mac as well! YAY!!

First of all, I bought the game.
Second, it runs in a netbook (NC10), but you might be missing some of the lower part of the screen. That is, menu is missing. However you can use ALT F4 for exit game, and then use the resume option.
Third, first four or five screens are self-contained. Later on you have access to wider areas. This means that there are sometimes you need to go back because you missed some useful object.
Fourth, there are some logic puzzles - I hate five-in-a-row.
And last, having a walkthrough in game feels like cheating. However you need to play an arcade game before you open the walkthrough book.

It looks charming. I'll definitely check out the demo.

People like you are hurting the indie game industry. Congratulations!

The price point is a bit too steep for the, practically, no replayability. It's a great game but definitely would benefit from being on Wii/XBL/PSN at a $10 price point.

Has anyone found any easter eggs?

I only said it was there, not that I had downloaded it, but whatever. Believe me or not, the only game I pirated this generation was Braid, just to see what all the commotion was about. Glad I didn't spend a penny with it.

@ Benjamim

If the Indie industry was smart, they wouldn't develop for PC, where games are easily pirated...

And yet Braid had a demo which you could have easily played and downloaded legally instead. This is what makes you an asshole.

Still, I know that even if I had played the demo beforehand I wouldn't I have bought it. So I guess we're even, Jonathan Blow.

Even? Not really.

You chose the torrent over the demo - you contributed upload speed to others that aren't downloading the demo, which probably played through the game and didn't buy it regardless of if you were just trying it or not.

Torrenting the whole game and downloading a demo are not the same, regardless of your intentions with the media you torrented.

If your beliefs are different, so be it, but they don't and most likely never will super-cede the laws that are in place that say otherwise.

If I could stand to play a PC game for more then an hour or two I might try this but the M/KB would just irritate me too much.

I've heard a few comments like "maybe my favorite adventure game ever" and "better than the recent telltale games" and "maybe as good as Longest Journey".

May well have to pick this up. It does look gorgeous. And samorost was totally awesome.

I will be buying it, but it does feel weird that it's just an Adobe AIR app, essentially.

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Point-and-click your way to the ever-charming Machinarium

Reader Comments (42)

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