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| Source // Steam |
I have absolutely no idea how I came to have Machinarium. None whatsoever. I didn't like point and click adventures, and gaming on a Mac just hadn't taken off, outside of iOS devices at least, though I do remember getting Steam when it launched on the platform...
Anyway, what is immediately obvious about Machinarium is that it doesn't look like any other game you've played, does it? You might even think it was made for the Mac, but it wasn't, because it's on everything nowadays, and it's still as challenging.
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| Source // Steam |
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| Source // MobyGames |
Frustrations
The first challenge I had was getting the damn thing to run well in a windowed mode, which it just doesn't, opting for some weird kind of scaling option instead of proper resolution settings, which just resulted in my mouse losing track of it to the point of it being unplayable.
Fullscreen it was, then, but like an idiot, I forgot to screenshot the damn thing, not that I got very far through it. You start off in a junkyard, having been picked up and discarded by this weird bug-like ship. Broken and in need of repair, it's time to point and click your way through Machinarium, whatever that means.
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| Source // Steam |
Fun Times
Each screen is its own beautifully detailed painting that has all the elements you need to solve a puzzle that takes you to the next screen. Here, the only robots allowed to cross the bridge are lanky fellas with policeman-like hats. We are a short but stretchy robot without a hat. Let the puzzle begin.
Your cursor will change to inform you what you can and can't interact with - a cone will probably serve as a hat, though it needs to be painted blue, so until you find that part of the puzzle the cone will be hidden away in your inventory for future use - so far, so point and click.
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| Source // Steam |
Further Frustrations
Screen three, however, brings my brain grinding to a halt. A lever releases a cart down the tracks, and only the cart can go through the door. We can't jump onto the cart at the top and it's going too fast to jump onto it from the bottom, even though we can pull the lever from the bottom.
I can see something dangling from above, and were this to be the Flash version, you can bet I'd be tabbing to try and find the clickable items that would allow me to get to it.
To help stuck players, Machinarium comes with two hint systems. The first is a thought bubble that pops up and shows a crude but still somehow nicely drawn hint - in this case, shimmy along a pipe to collect that dangling thing - in the hopes that that will be enough to help you out. It isn't.
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| Source // MobyGames |
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| Source // MobyGames |
The second is a full walkthrough, albeit drawn as a comic, but to get to it you need to play a tiny little side scroller that I am convinced is unwinnable in the first place. Evidently, it is possible to unlock the walkthrough to make use of it, but I literally had a harder time trying to get into it than trying to go through the puzzle in the first place.
As you can imagine, I got annoyed. Point and clicks are meant to be puzzly and are notorious for solutions that make absolutely no sense. Case in point is that you can squat down to reach a control box which alters the position of the pole you can stretch up to dangle across to the doohickey.
Does the pole need to be in the position that makes most visual sense to you? No. It needs to be in the one next to it, but there are twenty-five possible positions for it to be in. Are all of them reachable? No, not at all, so that's limits the number. What must you do when you think the pole is in position? Close the controls, walk up the stairs, stand in position underneath the pole, stretch yourself taller, jump... Hopefully, you've not accidentally launched a cart down the tracks during any of these, because that animation will slow you down too.
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| Source // Steam |
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| Source // Steam |
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| Source // Steam |
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| Source // Steam |
Unfortunately, the reward for struggling to work out what the developers want you to do is stunning artwork and a speechless story told through thought bubbles. It's one of the best looking games you could find yourself looking at, but if you're not a point and click gamer, you might be in for a bit of a nightmare.
Final Word
It isn't the longest of games, but my memory tells me that I did no better this time around than I did last time, and I'm still annoyed that I couldn't even unlock the bloody walkthrough. Thank goodness the Internet exists with its own walkthrough and guides, but if I'm following them, I might as well cut out the idiot in the middle and just watch someone play through it instead.
That's sad, but that's the nature of point and click adventure games for me. Sure, failure may only be a reset, but a failure to get on the same wavelength as the developers is a giant brick wall that stands between you and what you want to enjoy.
It's aggravating being dumb, it really is. From time to time I clean up this hard drive by uninstalling games I know I'm not going to get back to for a long time, if ever, but some stick around through multiple purges in the slim hopes that I'll get around to them soon. One of them is fellow point and clicker Broken Sword, a game that looks so appealing that I wish I had the brains to enjoy it easily.
It's been installed since playing it for this 1001 blog, and remains on the list of games I really want to get back to, either to them another chance or to continue a story I'm interested in. I'm holding out hopes that one day I'll have the smarts to get through it.
Maybe ten or so years later, I'll then have the smarts to try Machinarium again, and get past the fourth screen. Oh, how I wish I could see more of this art firsthand, on this monitor, without YouTube compression, and without a guide. I am simply not built for your gameplay.
If you are, though, and point and click is your thing, don't miss Machinarium. It's an absolute treat for your eyeballs.
Fun Facts
A year after release, the developers estimated only as much as 15% of players actually paid for Machinarium, the rest having played pirated copies, and so slashed the price to get more players to pay for the game. Faiiiirly certain I wasn't in the 85%, but still, how did I get a copy of Machinarium way back when?
Machinarium, developed by Amanita Design, first released in 2009.
Versions played: Mac OSX, 2009, via memory.
PC, 2009.