Machinarium Review: Top Notch Point and Click

 Beyond a solid UI, which Machinarium delivers, what makes or breaks gameplay in an adventure game are the puzzles. This is a big challenge: no one likes to get stuck, but no one wants to breeze through a game either. Most importantly, puzzles have to make sense, at least according to some internal logic of the game world. Getting hung up and having to think about a puzzle and try different things is part of the fun, but if when the solution is found, it is a random and nonsensical guess, the frustration is doubled as retroactive.

Puzzles should take some thinking and experimenting, but when solutions are found, they should result in an “Aha!” moment, not a “What the… ?” one. Machinarium goes one better, often making you laugh out loud at the comical tactics needed to progress. The puzzles don’t always make common sense, but they always make sense according to the strange but adorable world you wander.

 You have to think in terms of being this cute robot in this odd place, which helps you get into the game. For instance, your body can accordion to a much shorter or much taller size, and this is used in puzzles throughout the game. You discover this early in the game when after a long fall, you are forced to reassemble your strewn about components.

There are an astounding number of mini games, mostly being puzzles within the larger point and click puzzles, such as activating an elevator control panel by moving toggles into the correct patterns, or adjusting knobs to direct water and flood a robot crook hide-out. A few are more action based, which may be frustrating for those who don’t like and aren’t good at quick clicking, but you would have to really not like it and be really not good at it, as they are few, far between, and not more than a moderate challenge even for a gamer that doesn’t keep their reaction time at First Person Shooter standards.

 The story isn’t superb in the sense of plot twists or anything along those lines, but the exposition is brilliant. There is no dialogue in the game: everything you need to know is explained by cute little cartoons in speech and thought bubbles. It is reminiscent of those cartoons with no words, or gobbledygook words, or Mr. Bean. And it is frankly hilarious.

The animations contribute as well, and many times the results of solving a puzzle are humorous. The robot hero will often either get toppled in some clumsy slapstick, or pull off sweet back flips and slide down banisters, depending on if the move is planned or he is taken unawares by the results of his tinkering.

Even the inventory system raises the bar in terms of cuteness and continuity. For decades, items collected by point and click adventurers disappeared into an extra-dimensional inventory. The greatest nod to the restrictions of physical space seen in this context was to call the inventory a “Backpack” and, in truly exemplary cases, the on screen character actually wore a backpack.

 In Machinarium, picking up an item involves opening your mouth very wide, and tossing the item through a high arc ending in your gaping metal maw. When you need something, just stick in your arm and take it out. It’s a brilliant and funny way to solve to inventory continuity issue many gamers have taught themselves to ignore.