Machinarium

[Peder 🚀]

http://www.machinarium.com/

[ThreeOhFour]

I remember thinking this game was absolutely beautiful when I first saw screenshots of it.

[m0ds]

Saw the review in The Sun yesterday, and sounds interesting. I'll check it out! It also makes use of no dialog, which could be cool - something we once talked about at Mittens!

[arj0n]

Just played the demo, it really looks lovely.
It does have awesome visual art.
And the funny little animations when the robot is idle are so funny.

[Babar]

WOW! :O
Beautiful backgrounds. And awesome animations.

[Frodo]

Just bought it, and downloading as I type this.   

The demo is so amazing!  And I love Samorost, which was made by the same people   

[Jimbob]

Wait, you read a game review in The Sun!? of Machinarium!?

Mind = blown

[blueskirt]

Anyone here played the game and care to tell me if the game features a giant open world or is it a more linear adventure taking place in a chain of closed area?

I'll certainly play the game, my only problem with adventure games with surrealist or abstract settings is that logic tend to be thrown out of the window when it comes to puzzles and progression happen more often by randomly interacting with the environment rather than actually thinking to find a solution, which isn't a problem as long as you are confined in 2 or 3 rooms at the time. Full Pipe had that problem but around the end it was 60+ rooms you had to re-visit and interact with when you were stuck.

[Leon]

It's a bit of both...

I haven't finished it yet but am quite a long way already (category full length adventure games  ).
The game is certainly not easy with some good brainteasers and widens along the way. The first level is only one screen but the level I'm playing at the moment (it's not numbered) takes place in 9 different screens so it widens a lot. Besides that, the number of possible actions per screen also increases drastically.

It's not as with Wogger or Samorost that you need to click at seemingly random spots to progress, in this one there certainly is intelligence and logic. I'm not sure where it leads to (like said, haven't finished yet) but I have the idea it's building up and hope not it ends in a huge world with +60- screens.

In this one you know when you have some stages where you can't return anymore. So the world you leave behind is a closed chapter.

[Igor Hardy]

The game provides a great experience, and the world has a lot of neat little touches that make it feel real, but some may not like that...

A lot of puzzles revolve around experimenting with the environment. There are many fairly random logic puzzles obstacles - door locks, a guy in the bar that you have play "connect 5" with etc. There are are also timed puzzles (one which leads to death) and arcade mini-sequences (although only one of those is obligatory I think).

[Vince Twelve]

This game is so on my list of things to do after I finish getting Resonance off to IGF at the end of this month...

[Snake]

The demo was, no doubt, a lot of fun and I wouldn't mind owning it. I'm definately going to think about it.

Maybe it was just me:
The only thing I don't like about it is that I have no idea WHY I was playing. Maybe I missed the story on the game's title screen? I think, only after, watching the little guy's idle thoughts that the plot may be to find or put back together his robot woman friend?

In each scene there was no direction on what I was doing. For starters, in the first scene I had no idea I was a going to be controlling a little robot guy. I actually thought it was going to be another one of those physics games, like Fantastic Contraption, but controlling those cool flying robots on the title screen. Even after putting myself together, I still had no idea as to what the hell I was doing.

Spoiler

When I tied the string to the magnet and used it on the pole, I was actually aiming for winding the string around the pole, bend the pole and have the magnet stick to the pipe sticking out of the side of the ground... and then cross the water that way. I wasn't thinking about doing anything with the water at all.
I had forgotten that something had fallen in there during the intro :

[close]

And yes, in the second scene I knew I had to get across the bridge and into the big factory place... but the question is still there; Why? And then, when finally getting across, he falls off anyway. It was comical, but made me go, "Come on now..." at the same time. Why solve those puzzles just to fall into the gorge anyway (which permits an alternate way into the factory to begin with)?

I don't know, It must all go back to me not liking not knowing WHY I've picked something up in ANY adventure game and WHY I am doing a certain something. I guess my biggest pet peeve it starting to solve a puzzle that you didn't know was a puzzle, and/or the reason why it needs to be solved. A good example is having something in your inventory that you've contructed out of several different items way before ever knowing why you've made it and what you'll need it for.

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this game and am seriously considering getting it.

[arj0n]

Machinarium Plot:

Machinarium is a strange rusty, metallic place populated only by robots. In the game you play a little robot who incorrectly ended up at the dustbin just outside the city. After the robot has picked himself together, he goes back to the city where he encounters the bad guys from the Black Cap Brotherhood . They are preparing for a bombing in the central tower where the boss of the city has his residence. Your job is to stop them and also to save your friend, a robot-girl...

[Snake]

Where did you find that, Arj0n? I went to the site again and couldn't find it...

\\--EDIT--\\
Oops, and thank you by the way

[arj0n]

I admit they should have placed the plot story of Machinarium on their main page...

[Leon]

Or at least at the start of the game....

[Stupot]

Played the Demo a week or so ago.  I love how you can access an in-game walkthrough if you get stuck, but you have to play a little shoot-'em-up-style mini-game (hooray for hyphens) in order to earn the privilage.

As for WHY?
I see this game, rather than being an all-out adventure game, as more of a series of escape-the-room puzzles(s)... and anyone who has played many Escape games will know that they rarely have much of a plot, and it doesn't matter. The best Escape games are usually known, not for their story or for having much of a purpose, but for being charming and clever, and fun!

Judging from the demo, Machinarium doesn't seem to have too much of a point other than 'find your way back to whatever status quo was before the game started', but it seems to have all the wit and charm of all the best Escape games I've ever played.

[Snake]

Stewie, I was playing because, yes, it was fun... REALLY fun.

I meant me as the character in this character's world, I didn't know what I was doing and why I was doing it. Why am I headed this way? Beats me, but that's where the game is taking me so I might as well follow suit.

You need to have some sort of direction as to what you're doing and why you're playing this particular character, not just click on whatever-it-is because the hand appears when the mouse is hovered over it. Like I said, I had NO idea that I was going to be playing a little robot guy (didn't even know it was going to be an adventure game). NOTHING tells you what is going on.

They need to put something on the title. Something as small as what Arj0n had written.

It would be the same damn thing if someone posted a new game in the announcement forum with only the download link in the first post. Now when downloaded, opening and running this new AGS game there is no story as to what you are doing. You're just plopped on the first background as some unknown character and the cursor ready to do some clicking. You have no idea whether it's a comedy, a horror, "noir-style" or a joke game. How much sense does that make?

Machinarium is indeed great fun... but... bah. Hopefully I'm not the only one who knows what I'm talking about.

[NsMn]

There's actually some kind of story explanation... think of the imaginations of the robot! Just cute.

[m0ds]

Yes, The Sun! Thankfully they seem quite interested in point & clicks, and also UFO's

It's great to here this is the same company that developed Samorost...man I loved that game! Even though extensive playing of it in the office led to the demise of a job...Awesome! Definitely want to check this out!