Spigot
11-29-2009, 07:30 PM
Bleep blorp. It's time to channel your inner automaton as we delve into this week's edition of Turning The Spigot.
Machinarium
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2576/4143480395_dc088af46d_o.jpg
Year: 2009
Platform: PC, Mac, Linux
Rating: Utterly charming
# of Players: 1
Are you a fan of point and click adventure gaming who can't stand illogical solutions to simple puzzles and crowded inventory management? Do you want a game that warms your heart as much as it teases your brain? Do you like steampunk and robots? Well, Machinarium is the game for you.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2554/4143517427_d22fbb14cb_o.jpg
Machinarium puts you in the metallic boots of a plucky little robot who must save himself, his girl and his city from the nefarious plan of a couple of bullies. You begin the game by literally pulling yourself together after being unceremoniously dumped into a garbage heap. From there, your little automated avatar delves deeper and deeper into the mechanized city that serves as the setting of Machinarium. Along the way, you'll stage a prison break, electrocute a cat and try to stop a pair of bullies who engage in more and more nefarious goings-on over the course of the game.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2633/4144277556_c13f5a8a2c_o.jpg
Machinarium has a few things going for it. Firstly, it is drop dead gorgeous. Every scene is hand drawn and almost everything in the game was animated by hand. There are a tonne of little touches in each scene that you might not notice on the first pass but will pop out after a second look. The animations are also fantastic and lend an air of humanity to the metal denizens of the city.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2501/4144253368_81b27304a4_o.png
Machinarium also stands out from the usual slew of adventure games in that there is absolutely no dialogue or text in the game. Everything is told by use of animated speech and thought bubbles or the animations/expressions of a character. This helps Machinarium transcend language barriers and necessitates the player's imagination and involvement in putting together the particulars of exactly what is going on in the world. I have been playing the game with my 5 year old son and we've come up with names for the bully robots and various other elements of the game world.
Now all of this cute presentation is well and good, you may say, but how are the puzzles? In a word, great. Some puzzles are quite simple to solve while others will wrack your brain until you run screaming to the BIG BOOK OF SOLUTIONS (which is available in-game at any time). The BIG BOOK OF SOLUTIONS is a fantastic addition to the point-and-click adventure genre. If you are ever stuck, you can click on the BIG BOOK OF SOLUTIONS to see a walkthrough of the puzzles on the screen you are working on at the moment. To keep people from using this all the time, the designers force you to play a little side-scrolling shooter minigame (think R-Type with monochrome graphics and a giant key for a ship) before it will unlock. This is enough of an impendiment that you'll only want to open the BIG BOOK OF SOLUTIONS as a last resort.
Another little quirk of Machinarium is the fact that your little robot buddy can only interact with objects that he is near. Unlike many other games in the genre, you can't just pixel hunt around the screen. You'll have to move the little guy to where the object is before you can use it. Thankfully he posesses a telescoping torso that lets him reach objects that are high or low and his arms can extend when the situation calls for it. There is also very little in the way of inventory management. When an object is no longer needed, it will be tossed aside or lost during the solving of a puzzle. For long-time adventure game fans, this is big news. You'll never have to randomly combine objects unless they are meant to be randombly combined. This streamlining of your inventory is a godsend.
uwZBdWRSBRs
Machinarium is very easy to run on almost any machine as it is, for all intents and purposes, a glorified Flash game. You can buy the PC version on Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/40709/) for $19.99 or directly from the developer (http://machinarium.net/demo/) on PC, Mac or Linux for the same price. The developer version comes with a free soundtrack, so that might help sway your choice of venues. You can even play a demo on the developer's site to get a taste of how the game works.
Enjoy!
Machinarium
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2576/4143480395_dc088af46d_o.jpg
Year: 2009
Platform: PC, Mac, Linux
Rating: Utterly charming
# of Players: 1
Are you a fan of point and click adventure gaming who can't stand illogical solutions to simple puzzles and crowded inventory management? Do you want a game that warms your heart as much as it teases your brain? Do you like steampunk and robots? Well, Machinarium is the game for you.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2554/4143517427_d22fbb14cb_o.jpg
Machinarium puts you in the metallic boots of a plucky little robot who must save himself, his girl and his city from the nefarious plan of a couple of bullies. You begin the game by literally pulling yourself together after being unceremoniously dumped into a garbage heap. From there, your little automated avatar delves deeper and deeper into the mechanized city that serves as the setting of Machinarium. Along the way, you'll stage a prison break, electrocute a cat and try to stop a pair of bullies who engage in more and more nefarious goings-on over the course of the game.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2633/4144277556_c13f5a8a2c_o.jpg
Machinarium has a few things going for it. Firstly, it is drop dead gorgeous. Every scene is hand drawn and almost everything in the game was animated by hand. There are a tonne of little touches in each scene that you might not notice on the first pass but will pop out after a second look. The animations are also fantastic and lend an air of humanity to the metal denizens of the city.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2501/4144253368_81b27304a4_o.png
Machinarium also stands out from the usual slew of adventure games in that there is absolutely no dialogue or text in the game. Everything is told by use of animated speech and thought bubbles or the animations/expressions of a character. This helps Machinarium transcend language barriers and necessitates the player's imagination and involvement in putting together the particulars of exactly what is going on in the world. I have been playing the game with my 5 year old son and we've come up with names for the bully robots and various other elements of the game world.
Now all of this cute presentation is well and good, you may say, but how are the puzzles? In a word, great. Some puzzles are quite simple to solve while others will wrack your brain until you run screaming to the BIG BOOK OF SOLUTIONS (which is available in-game at any time). The BIG BOOK OF SOLUTIONS is a fantastic addition to the point-and-click adventure genre. If you are ever stuck, you can click on the BIG BOOK OF SOLUTIONS to see a walkthrough of the puzzles on the screen you are working on at the moment. To keep people from using this all the time, the designers force you to play a little side-scrolling shooter minigame (think R-Type with monochrome graphics and a giant key for a ship) before it will unlock. This is enough of an impendiment that you'll only want to open the BIG BOOK OF SOLUTIONS as a last resort.
Another little quirk of Machinarium is the fact that your little robot buddy can only interact with objects that he is near. Unlike many other games in the genre, you can't just pixel hunt around the screen. You'll have to move the little guy to where the object is before you can use it. Thankfully he posesses a telescoping torso that lets him reach objects that are high or low and his arms can extend when the situation calls for it. There is also very little in the way of inventory management. When an object is no longer needed, it will be tossed aside or lost during the solving of a puzzle. For long-time adventure game fans, this is big news. You'll never have to randomly combine objects unless they are meant to be randombly combined. This streamlining of your inventory is a godsend.
uwZBdWRSBRs
Machinarium is very easy to run on almost any machine as it is, for all intents and purposes, a glorified Flash game. You can buy the PC version on Steam (http://store.steampowered.com/app/40709/) for $19.99 or directly from the developer (http://machinarium.net/demo/) on PC, Mac or Linux for the same price. The developer version comes with a free soundtrack, so that might help sway your choice of venues. You can even play a demo on the developer's site to get a taste of how the game works.
Enjoy!