Machinarium - Review (PC and Mobile game)

It was love at first sight. From the moment I first saw ‘Machinarium’ sitting in the list of recommended games I knew it was to be mine. For a price so meager it was almost an insult I downloaded an exceptionally tiny game of around 200MB and proceeded to be astounded by a puzzle game that was bursting with personality, story and beautifully hand drawn artwork. 

Developer: Amanita Design
Genre: Adventure, puzzle, point and click
Release date: 16th October 2009 
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, OS X, iPad 2, Windows Phone
PEGI: 7+ (some violence)

'Machinarium' is a point and click puzzle game where you take control of a small, unassuming robot in a robotic society that’s victim to a gang of antisocial thugs. What pulls this game aside from the competition is most certainly its art style, just look at those screenshots, it’s a beautiful game that perfectly portrays a crumbling, rusting city and citizens living on the brink of existence. There’s so much detail and so many little touches to the environments and animations that you can only truly appreciate it by playing it yourself as the screenshots alone don’t do it justice. Your nameless, noiseless robot protagonist is quite obviously a character who’s lived under the thumb of others his entire life and in the first ten minutes you see him discarded in a rubbish tip, turned away by the authorities and then plummet into a grotesque sewer system. His somewhat bullied ‘childhood’ is hinted at in the same primary communication that all other characters utilize; soft, inoffensive thought bubbles that either reflect on past events or communicate what they want from you. Even without words it’s easy to empathize with your humble robot character as he totters about, helping others and trying to do some good in a corrupt and rundown city where crime is king and the mechanical officials are about as helpful as a robot bathhouse. 

Yet it’s not just its unending charm that’s there to impress, graphical style and personality can only carry you so far after all, ‘Machinarium’ thankfully manages to bring in a solid compilation of puzzles, smooth and thoughtful storyline additions and overall a fair bit of bang for your buck. The game’s by no means long but there will be times you’ll be held up trying to advance as the puzzles usually require some thought and not everything is immediately obvious. Whilst the puzzles generally rely on some good old item combination then using items in the world environment there’s a decent spattering of originality in the form of its unique ‘stretching and shortening’ feature of your robot friend.

In a traditional ‘Bender’ fashion you can lengthen your robots legs to the point where he can access previously out of reach areas or shorten him to a hobbling, squashed up little robot that can do all sorts of things in this new, skirting board level territory. It’s different and its interesting and what strangely appealed to me is the influence of retro gaming that makes its appearance in old, disused arcade machines and the in-game walkthrough that can only be accessed by playing through increasingly difficult levels of a spaceship game. I liked this allusion to how everything is old and past its time and I also liked the option to use a walkthrough in-game but by earning it through a rather difficult mini-game that didn’t feel out of place at all in the overall scheme of things.

With ‘Machinarium’ there’s just this feel that everything slots together and everything’s very well thought out and crafted from tiny animations like the slurping up of a coil of string when you pick some up to the slow, measured teetering movements when you’re tall. Everything you do has a special animation that will make you squeal with excitement, well maybe not squeal, I do get a little overexcited with indie games, but you get my point, it’s cool stuff. The game is incredibly cheap for what you get and quite honestly I can’t think of a game quite like this one from its design to the way it plays out it’s most definitely an experience and one I applaud for both its squeal-inducing ability and its confidence at portraying a silent hero in a rusted world. All in all, I loved it, even if I am five years late to the party. 

The Good:

• Very well animated, lots of attention to detail
• Beautiful, hand drawn graphics that constantly impress
• Interesting areas to explore
• Full of personality
• The lack of dialogue surprisingly pleasant
• Pretty decent storyline with room for a sequel
• Challenging puzzles that will keep you guessing
• Extremely atmospheric

The Bad: 

• A little slow in places
• Some puzzles are extremely difficult

The Score: 9/10 

Final thoughts: "I genuinely struggled during this game as the puzzles are pretty damn hard, and frankly the walkthrough mini-game is no walk in the park either. Regardless, the game is well worth playing as its beautiful, full of personality and presenting quite a unique experience and premise."

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Among the Sleep - Review (PlayStation 4, Windows/Linux/OS X game)

There are always things we’re going to be afraid of, that much is certain, but it’s the things we are most uncertain of that tend to terrify or aggravate us the most. As children we lacked the understanding that we have now and trying to cope in a world where we’re unable to reason away the existence of monsters or understand the steps to take when you find yourself alone. This helplessness and vulnerability is the very core of what makes survival horror games so terrifying and usually this vulnerability is due to a lack of weapons, an abundance of darkness and a big splash of threat that is often unseen. In ‘Among The Sleep’, you’re dropped right back into the footy pyjamas of a toddler soon after his 2nd birthday party where he received a bite of cake and a slightly odd looking, talking teddy bear. You awake in the middle of the night to a strange commotion in your bedroom and, after you’ve been flung from your crib, you venture out into the dark corridors to find your mother for some much needed comfort. Unfortunately, she’s nowhere to be found. 

Developer: Krillbite Studio
Release date: May 29th 2014
Genre: Survival horror
Platforms: Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4,
ESRB: Rating pending (likely to be a 16+/Teen rating)

Playing as a toddler is in itself a novel experience but what is particularly appreciable is the way in which tasks we would find simple as an adult become an instant challenge for a toddler such as the opening of doors. Although the mechanics can be a little clunky there’s a sort of realism to this as by dragging around say, a chair, you’re not only struggling to walk on two feet but you have to move a heavy object whilst you’re at it. In 'Among the Sleep' you have the ability to switch between walking, running and crawling and quite appropriately the crawling is a much faster way of getting around though, down there, you cannot interact with anything. This presents a problem in that you are significantly more vulnerable when you’re unable to see where you’re headed, interact with things or use your ‘flashlight’ which is actually a light emitted from hugging your teddy bear, awwh. ‘Among the Sleep’ has a fair few puzzles that are more about getting to your destination than solving anything too complex and the game itself is running off a ‘find three items’ objective that are obtained by going through very different areas. You start out in your house, naturally, and then move through increasingly more surreal areas that are wonderfully varied and consistently offer you new and interesting places to explore.

The places you tend to explore are, unsurprisingly, dark. By dark I mean, 'can barely see your hand in front of your face', kind of dark, so that teddy bear hugging I mentioned earlier is an extremely useful feature. As you can only hug your bear when you’re standing upright what tends to occur is a trade-off between being able to see where it is you’re going and getting there quickly enough. This is a surprisingly stressful situation to be placed in constantly as once you’re left alone in the darkness your over-active child’s imagination comes to life and things appear far much terrifying than they usually would do. Whilst the game isn’t necessarily full on horror there’s enough of an atmosphere that will drive you onwards and ensure you never want to linger too long for fear of what’s lurking in the shadows. The game tends to put you through phases of thinking there’s something there, to believing it’s just your imagination, to making you definitely think there’s something there and this rollercoaster of fear and paranoia will make you constantly question everything around you. 

What I’ve yet to mention is how fantastic the game actually looks and almost everything is interactive whether that’s a piece of fruit in the kitchen or a soft toy in your bedroom; everything can be picked up, carried and put wherever the hell you want it to go. All chairs can be dragged around whether you need to move them or not, drawers and cupboards can be opened and generally there’s a huge amount of detail. Even in places you’re not really supposed to explore you’ll still find a very respectable level of furnishings whilst the textures and detail have not been skimped on adding to a rather realistic, if slightly cartoony, feel. The game’s appearance also significantly contributes to the atmosphere of the game and little things like well-timed thunderclaps, partially lit corridors and the ability to hide under furniture at any given time with no prompting results in you questioning yourself about whether you need to be hiding or not. You’ll often second guess yourself in this game and there are some stupidly terrifying moments such as turning a corner and seeing a dark figure looming over you, just around the corner and out of sight, you turn to stumble away and then realise it’s, well, just a coat on a coat rack. You rarely get those experiences playing as an adult as you would almost immediately see its lack of a face but, as a toddler, all you get is the bottom of a coat and a pair of shoes and this whole new perspective puts you at a disadvantage even for seasoned survival horror gamers.

Don’t let me convince you that this game is all about running from your own shadow however as, trust me, there’s something out there to get you and though I won’t spoil it for you it’s definitely something that makes its presence known. Try as you might you cannot deny the tell-tale rattling of a door handle as you watch something unseen opening a previously looked door from the other side. Neither can you ignore turning around to see that, somehow, something you thought was inanimate has moved and now it’s standing right behind you, staring at you, still unmoving and leaving you very little choice but to slide around it, desperately hoping it doesn’t decide to wake up and do anything else whilst your back is turned. 

Overall

‘Among the Sleep’ is certainly a memorable game and a very unique experience that is well worth a look at, even if you don’t usually play horror games. Whilst the storyline tends to take a backseat during the main chunk of the game it is generally explained through the opening and closing cutscenes with some general illusions to what’s going on as you play. The game is by no means dull however and though it is in no way comparable to gore fests such as 'Amnesia' and 'Outlast' it’s deserving of its place as a horror game due to the undeniably spooky ambiance and the constant fear that something’s about to jump out at you. There are mechanical issues with the game, particularly when climbing on objects, but these can be generally excused as the rest of the game is very attractive with a strong, vibrant pallet and lashings of attention to detail. Occasionally I encountered some frustrating moments of not knowing where to go but generally the game is just about the right level of difficulty and it was probably just me struggling to put 2+2 together though, at times, the puzzles were somewhat lame. The game is unfavourably short at around 3 hours long and I would have definitely preferred a longer game with more build up and some more scares but, overall, the upcoming DLC should settle down the need to spend longer in this oversized world.

The Good: 

• Brilliant storyline, thought provoking ending
• Very atmospheric with a constant eerieness
• Interactive world and puzzle elements are a nice addition
• Looks very clean cut with bold, vibrant graphics
• Sounds fantastic with brilliant voice acting and high quality ambient sounds
• Original concept that was risky for developers but worked out great
• Few scare tactics used, instead more of an investigation into fear
• Playing as a toddler offered up some very interesting and new situations

The Bad: 

• Could have had 'more going on' in it
• Climbing mechanics need to be worked on
• Should have been longer with more build up
• The teddy bear is more creepy than comforting

The Score: 8/10

Final thoughts: "The ending is extremely poignant and made me glad I continued all the way through. I loved the concept of playing as a toddler and am extremely glad somebody took the initiative to put this into a game, now I want to watch everybody I know play it."

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