Machinarium

I just checked out an ad for the latest Humble Bundle. It was targeted to Android users. Most of the games seemed like nothing special. However there was one games whose graphics seemed unusual. This game was Machinarium. You had to pay at least $5.95 for the whole bundle of games to qualify for the Machinarium bonus game.

Machinarium was released back in 2009. I looked it up. The thing costs $10 if you want the game as released on multiple platforms. If you just need the iPad version (which requires the iPad 2), it costs $4.99 in the app store. Note that this game also runs on the Playstation 3. Apparently they initially wanted to release it on the XBox360. But Microsoft halted that effort.

This game was made using Adobe Flash. The credits only list one or two developers for the whole game. Guess that is all you need when there are 30 screens total of puzzles. However there were a whopping 16 testers listed in the credits. This game was produced by Amanita design. They have a few other games out there including Samorost and Botanicula.

Macinarium has a free demo for Windows that I played. The intro shows a bunch of trash being dumped. The main character is apparently one that appeared previously in games such as Super Meat Boy. While playing, I was a robot with just a head. I retrieved my body, but had to trade another animal a mouse so it would retrieve my legs. Then I got stuck.

I could not get off the first screen. There is allegedly a built in hint system. The thing that struck me about this game was the weird but beautiful graphics. It was strange also that there was little to no text on the screen. This is a graphic adventure that reminds me of Myst. I might just have to buy this darn thing (and use the hints to get by). I wish this would work on new iPhone 5.