Update Fifty-Seven: 4 October 2017
Machinarium
5.7 hours, 12 of 12 achievements
7/10
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
If you know adventure games, you know Amanita Design - and, more specifically, you know Machinarium. A darling from several years ago, I got it, aaaaand….. it didn’t grab me.
I played about 40% of it (up to the plaza, I remember) and then found no reason to keep going.
Since then, it’s been updated with achievements, which are my personal motivators, and the Rewind challenge made it a perfect time to swoop in, pick it up, and enjoy it for good.
Coming back to it… it’s okay! It’s not my favorite Amanita Design game by far - in fact, it’s almost normal for them. The puzzles aren’t super fun and have a lot of the much-reviled Adventure Game logic to them, and I did myself a favor and had the main character be a girl saving her girlfriend because I’m so sick of boy-saving-girl stories (and character design where thing = male and thing pink w/ ‘dress’ = girl). So. Both girls!
I did end up finding more things to like about it, though. As with all Amanita Design games the soundtrack is lovely, and the main character has a ton of personality. I really appreciated the different ways they had her pick up, interact with, and eventually discard items. Every interaction seemed special and unique, which is a feat. It’s smoothly animated, and there was a wrench-bot who was krumping which was really charming. As I played, I also found myself thinking that this was a softer, cuter side of the city that Primordia is set in. I loved that game so much, some of it leaked into this game. I also have a very fond spot for robots.
Next up: Speaking of Wadjet Eye-produced point and clicks, I’m happy to revisit -
See you soon!
I’ve got Machinarium in my backlog, I should play it soon!
technobabylon is SO good! i felt similar to you about machinarium: it’s really enjoyable as a piece of art (visual and sound) but the story and puzzles are mediocre.
Hell yes! I’m glad we agree.
I think Technobabylon dukes it out with Primordia as my favorite Wadjet Eye game, and Primordia may win only because Logan Cunningham voices the main character and I love him and he’s a sweetie. I’m really excited to go back and do one more playthrough with the developer’s commentary - god, I love developer’s commentary in games.
my favorites are technobabylon and gemini rue, and the blackwell series is really great too. i always play through once blind, then a second time with commentary on and having looked up achievements i didn’t get the first time through. i’ve done that with almost everything wadjet eye has released so far and feel like i know that crew, especially dave.