From the creators of the adventure/puzzle Flash game Samorost, comes Machinarium, a new creation which tries to expand the surreal perspective of Jakub Dvorsky's vision (father of Samorost and Samorost 2), but this time in a much more accessible way. 

You play as a robot that has to find his way back into the city, from which he was thrown out, in order to save his robot girlfriend. There's no doubt, the premise of this game is extremely simple, but the concept and the graphical design makes it worth playing.

Everything that you will find out in the game will be through the character's actions and thoughts expressed into cartoonish bubbles which feature images or short animations. There is not a single dialog line written in the whole game. This method tends to be the only way the story is said through the whole game. Originality does not stop here, but continues with the graphical design. Your character is a 2D model representation moving in a sketchy static overworld where he has to solve puzzles in order to get to the next scene or open the door to the next scenario. Every new scene is actually a detailed drawing very similar with the pencil - pictures, animated by domestic robots that perform their daily duties. Compared to these robots, the main character is useless. He's only abilities is to stretch or duck in order to fetch unreachable objects that are placed near him.

This is a good addition, because you can only interact with the objects if these are placed in the 'reach area' of your character. Unlike classic point'n'click adventures where you can explore with your mouse the whole environment for key objects without the need of moving the character, here you have to use the robot as a physical link between objects and different scenes. Therefore the key objects and their solutions are placed most of the time in the same scene making the puzzles bearable.

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The difficulty of the game is increasing when you reach the inner-city, where several puzzles need different objects combinations located in other scenes. Slowly the game can become frustrating from this level on, thanks to the movement limitation which restrains the player from moving freely and fast from one scene to the other. Once you choose a location, the robot will walk without hesitation to the correspondent spot at a moderate speed. If the spot is wrong and the player wants to change the direction of the character, this maneuver can be applied only after the robot ends his route. At the same time there is no way the character can run to any of the locations. These negative aspects are direct results of the game being actually a Flash application. Besides these minuses, the game suffers from the lack of the 'right click' function. This forces the player to drag'n'drop back in the inventory any unnecessary object. If you 'right click' like in any other classic adventure game, you will get the Flash Options Tab. At least after completing any puzzle, every object concerning its solution will disappear from your inventory.  

In order to win a wide audience, the game features a hints system. This system appears in two modes. If you are just insecure regarding what to do, you can access the lightbulb in the upper right corner of the screen which will activate a bubble animation to show you a hint. If you are really stuck you have to activate the second mode by playing a mini-game in order to unlock the full solution of the existing scene. In this mini-game you have to guide a key through hanging spiders and a maze of walls in order to reach the lock. If you succeed in reaching the lock, a book opens showing the solution through storyboard drawings.

From the graphical point of view Machinarium is a visual masterpiece. There are direct influences from the Samorost series, but this time the overall design and style is much clearer with some steam-punk elements combined with old-style sci-fi sketches. In some scenes the drawings are extremely detailed, despite the fact that everything is static and represented in 2D. There is a sense of hugeness created by the background buildings which lose detail giving the false impression of disappearing in the city's fog. Other objects have an astonishing pencil-style image created to express a macabre, even grotesque feeling, similar to the "noir" genre.

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Conclusion

Along with Braid, Machinarium is a good example of modern visual art featuring a playable concept inducing the player a unique state of mind. Its idea, graphics and soundtrack makes it stand in front of todays point'n'click games becoming a cult game which will be studied by many developers for future products. There is no wonder that the game also won the Excellence in Visual Art award at the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival.

Gameplay: 84

Machinarium is based on the classical point'n'click concept, but tries to stand out in front of this genre modifying some basic elements. Any of the key objects can be grabbed or analyzed only if it's positioned in the 'reach area' of the character. A major focus has been put to the puzzles linked to the scene area. In general a major puzzle is always related to the scene in which it is placed. Unfortunately the game suffers from being a Flash application, bringing limitations in terms of movement and inventory management.

Graphics: 90

As I already mentioned, Machinarium is a visual masterpiece, not because it features advanced graphics, but because of the level design and static drawings which in some places look so vivid. The pencil-like sketches are far more expressive than a 3D graphics package featuring high resolution textures. I felt so many mixed feelings while playing this game, most of them being caused by the graphics which create dark and grotesque images while still keeping a low-fi schi-fi style.

Multiplayer: N/A

Sound: 89

Amazing electro soundtrack which fits the overall ambience. It is a mixture of minimal, dark-synth music, accompanied by primitive environmental tunes. Because the game doesn't feature spoken dialogs, the only sounds that you will hear from the character's mouth is a mumble-rumble succession expressive enough to suggest the robot's "feelings".

Hardware: 80

Being a Flash application you will get instant loading times, no framerate drops, but on the other hand you will get stuck into its limited controls scheme.