Roughly a week ago I wrote up a quick review of the Machinarium demo and, needless to say, it left an impression. The bar was set high and I was starting to worry that Machinarium would not live up to expectations. But as days passed, October 16th rolled around and with it came the full release of Machinarium (plus the lovely Machinarium OST, if you went with the Amanita Design pre-order rather than the Steam one). It was a gloomy and uneventful Friday evening in Croatia - perfect timing for an artsy and intriguing point-and-click adventure game to come my way. Now if it's only what I imagine it to be... that would be great, wouldn't it?

Amanita Design, the independent Czech game developers known for the two brilliant Samorost games, have swapped out mossy green nature collages for the rust of robotic cityscapes in Machinarium, their latest adventure title. What was once put together from images of flora and the occasional old water heater has now been replaced by inspiring hand-drawn and painted visuals that do more than give the game an identity in this point-and-click adventure game renaissance. In essence, you know that you've struck an art design goldmine when high-resolution screenshots can double as artwork, no? Machinarium's soundtrack also works amazingly well with the game's mood and setting. The talented Czech composer Tomáš Dvořák, whom fans of electronic music might also know as Floex, manages to create tunes that give off a very nostalgic and 'that what was once here, now isn't' feeling about the dystopian world the game portrays.

Machinarium's protagonist is a love-struck robot who, after being dumped outside of the city's walls, goes on a mission to save his girlfriend and, in the process of doing so, uncovers the evil scheme of The Black Cap Brotherhood. While this might sound like your average 'save the princess' type of ordeal, Machinarium's got a trick up its sleeve. What makes this fable shine is the game's art of storytelling. Dialogue in written form is not present in Machinarium at all, rather it is substituted by animated recreations in the form of thought bubbles. From conversations to puzzle 'tutorials', learning about the occurences that led up to the events in Machinarium is done only through the thought bubble 'cartoons', effectively breaking any language barrier. Interestingly enough, every 'dialogue' also gives you a piece of what might be the biggest puzzle of all: the game's plot. At the beginning of the game, you're left wondering what exactly happened, but with every conversation you find out a bit about the robots and how they tie-in to whatever is going on in the game. It's definitely a very smart plot device.

The robot character can only interact with characters and items in his reach, and he can stretch his body to make himself either taller or shorter. Both of these are welcome twists to point-and-click gameplay. The ability to elongate introduces a new 'dimension of thought' to puzzle solving, while the 'reach radius' effectively removes the need for pixel hunting, or at least helps you home in on where the item should be. Machinarium is a puzzle fan's heaven. Thanks to the convenient lack of text dialogue, the game goes from puzzle to puzzle, with each one increasing in difficulty as the game progresses. There are also times when solving puzzles calls for control of both the robot and his girlfriend, and while these 'double sided' puzzles are interesting and show promise, the idea of using two characters to progress through the game is only superficially explored. Machinarium's interface is simple and to the point - hovering your mouse to the top of the screen prompts a drop-down inventory bar, and moving the mouse away retracts it. That's all there is to it. It was obviously designed in the mindset 'simplicity is key', and one wouldn't have it any other way.

So back to my initial problem. Did Machinarium meet my expectations? It did. Did it exceed them? I like to think so! There's no doubt that Machinarium provides a quality experience for both new and veteran adventure gamers. Its presentation caters to a younger audience while the inner workings and nifty improvements on how adventure games should play are anything but stale to the gamer who was there when King's Quest hit the scene. It's essentially an independent take on the modern adventure game, mixing sugar, spice and everything nice in just the right amounts to create the perfect little girl. I mean, indie adventure game.