Vital Stats

Genre: Adventure
Players: 1
Online: No

Developer: Armanita Design
Publisher: None yet
ESRB Rating: Unrated
Release Date: TBA

Platforms

• PC

Machinarium
We shared our initial impressions of Machinarium when it was featured in the IGF. We didn’t get a chance to chat with the developers while there, but it turns out that the game was beautiful enough to score a spot in the PAX 10.

Machinarium features a scrappy little robot as he tries to save his robot-girlfriend. Actually, he’s scrappy in more ways in one, and the game begins as he’s thrown into a junkyard. From there, he has to find his way back into his robot-city, undermine the efforts of robot-terrorists, and eventually find his robot-girlfriend. Robot!

Machinarium doesn’t seem to feature any language. Robots instead communicate with pictographic thought bubbles, which is quite a departure for the genre. Adventure games rely heavily on storytelling for motivation and reward, and virtually pioneered elemental storytelling conceits like cut scenes and prerendered video. However, nonverbal storytelling is difficult to pull off and a risky gambit.

Fortunately, Machinarium is well-equipped for the job. From the expressive hand-drawn sprites to the hulking rusted city, the game’s attention to artistic detail is peerless.

Vital Stats

Genre: Action
Players: 1
Online: None

Developer: Hemisphere Games
Publisher: Hemisphere Games
ESRB Rating: Unrated
Release Date: 8/18/09

Platforms

• PC

Osmos
We first encountered Osmos at the IGF. It’s a sort of dynamic simulation of the predator/prey relationship. You control a mote that absorbs and incorporates smaller motes, but can only pursue them by ejecting its own volume as propulsion. Of course there are also larger motes, and even grazing them will siphon away your precious volume.

The handful of demo levels showed a great deal of promise. In addition to resource management, the propulsion mechanic generated compelling physics gameplay. Pursuing repulsor motes and weaving in and out of orbit around attractor motes is a meditative experience as you tweak your flight path just enough to feed your mote.

Osmos has grown up and moved out of the house since then. The one time demo is now a full-featured game being distributed by Steam, Direct2Drive, and the developers themselves. As it has matured, it has maintained its zen approach to gameplay while broadening the challenge level.

Vital Stats

Genre: Puzzle
Players: 1
Online: Distribution

Developer: Team Shotgun
Publisher: None yet
ESRB Rating: Unrated
Release Date: 1/2009

Platforms

• Unity (browser plugin)

Puzzle Bloom
Revenge fantasies are sweet and common gaming MacGuffins, but developers usually have to contrive a betrayal to justify them. Puzzle Bloom has a much more elegant setup. You control a tree spirit, and there really aren’t any better contenders for revenge motivation as mythical creatures go.

So your little sylvan advocate breaks into technological facilities to smash everything inside and reclaim them for the forest. Fortunately, the native animals were enslaved instead of bulldozed, so the spirit can hitch a ride and direct them to make trouble. The puzzles come in as you hop between animals to manipulate switches and crates to access secure parts of the compound.

Puzzle bloom has a subtly amoral feel for a game with such basic themes. Sure the soulless concrete and lasers that bar your way are uncomplicated aggressors, but the wood spirit treats her animal companions with no more dignity than their slavemasters. She abandons them in compromising positions to be burnt and crushed by the puzzles they just solved. Right or wrong, the themes play against your agency in a way that textures the game’s storytelling.