Daniel Hruska On September 8, 2011, a popular adventure game appeared in the App Store Machinarium, which is the work of Czech creators from an independent studio in Brno Amanita Design. Some time ago, it was also at the top of the App Store rankings. The game has been around since 2009, and now it's also expanding to apple tablets.
The little girl from Amanita Design can really do it. The team consisting of Jakub Dvorský, Václav Blin, Tomáš 'Floex' Dvořák, David Oliva, Jan Werner, Tomáš 'Pif' Dvořák and Adolf Lachman proved that games can not only have their own sound, but also their own poetics. In 2009, they won the winner's cup at the Iindependent Games festival in the category Excellence in Visual Art, another trophy on PAX Expo – and the price Official Selection 2009. The visual side of the game is absolutely phenomenal. The raw tin world is rendered in every detail, which of course leads to drawing the player into the game. Right at the first screen, I felt an aluminum spoon on my tongue. You must have also sipped soup from it at some point. Even though it is a 2D world, the environment is very plastic and you feel like you are playing in the third space. Also, the accompanying sounds and music act as if you were standing on the other side of the display. This really worked out very well.
You are in the "skin" of a small robot and your task is nothing more than a passage to other parts of the mechanical city. The creators minimized verbal expression, comic bubbles are used when communicating between the characters. Progress through the city is complicated by puzzles, riddles and other intricacies that warm or rather ignite your brain coils. Various items are placed in the space, which you will always use as a good handyman. Also look out for levers, knobs, and other levers that allow you to start something.
In every part of the city, the robot is always up to something. You can peek into his thoughts using the light bulb button in the lower right corner of the screen. An important part of progressing in the game is interacting with other robots. Sometimes you will need their help, but not even a chicken digs for free. You will always have something to offer them.
Machinarium is only available for the iPad 2. Yes, owners of the first generation iPad are just out of luck and simply cannot play this game on it. The culprit is the small capacity of the operating memory. Of the 256 MB, the larger half is taken by the system itself. In order for the game to run stably, the game would have to make do with a maximum of 90 MB. However, the problem is not with the game itself, but with the platform. Machinarium was originally created in Flash, which as we all know is not supported on iOS. The entire game therefore had to be ported to Adobe Air technology.
The disadvantage compared to the desktop version is the inability to move the mouse over objects and find out which of them are active. All you have to do is tap the display and hope something happens.
Despite this minor flaw, I can warmly recommend the game to all iPad 2 owners. For others, a flash version is available on Amanita Design website. Desktop apple users can download from the Mac App Store.
[app url=”http://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/machinarium/id459189186?mt=8″]
[app url=”http://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/machinarium/id423984210?mt=12″]
