Just a question to those who enjoyed the game.

[nonukez]

Is this game a typical point-and-click adventure experience?

The reason I ask is because A: I did not enjoy this game, and B: I rarely play point-and-click. I thoroughly enjoyed the artwork and visuals, and the game's very effective at telling a speechless story. But wow, some of the puzzles had me up the walls.

For some specific examples, After you give the robot in the wheelchair the oil, and you go down the manhole; I did not understand anything in that room. The 3 keys I was able to obtain, but where to put it on the pipes and how I was supposed to know when it worked or not confused me. The animation time of him going up the ladder then back down seemed so painfully long when I had to go up and check every time to see if anything changed. Also, there seemed to be no indication that the wrench robot wanted a radio. I think that annoyed me more than the pipe-key puzzle; I had absolutely no clue what to do with the radio, whereas with the pipes I had some clue.

Another example is when you first meet the female character for the first time. This one I got completely by accident, and am baffled as to how ANYONE could possibly figure this out with logic, which to me seems pretty important to be able to do so. Put the corn on the stove, the pieces go up the vent, and somehow the main character gets a stick that was lodged in the vent. Like the first example I mentioned, I am genuinely curious if people were able to solve it using reasoning instead of luck/looking up the guide.

And lastly, the fan robot that you have to solve puzzles in order to pass, except you have to actually fail at the riddles in order to pass. This one may just be my lack of point-and-click experience, but this one thoroughly annoyed me. The puzzles kept changing and getting harder, so I assumed that I was on the right track. Luckily it was in a spot where you couldn't backtrack, or I would've wasted significantly more time. Again, is this kind of "reverse-puzzle" a typical occurrence in point-and-click?

Overall though, it wasn't the worst experience. But some of the puzzles in the game gave me absolutely no joy in solving, either by accident or through the guide, and there were just too many of those. I spent a good 10 hours on this game, first on Android then on PC (after finding that touch controls were even worse for a point and click). I would like some information on how other people solved these puzzles I mentioned, as that would help me understand more the praise of the game that others have given.

[SpoilersSweetie]

what really hacks me off is that you have to do that stupid mini game for every hint :/

[bliss]

I think I got most of these with trial and error too (sorry, it's been too long since I played to reply more specifically), but as to whether it's a typical point & click experience, I'd say it's reasonably typical, except it contained more mini-games than average, something I dislike.

The puzzle design depends on each individual title of course, but some titles are definitely more logic oriented than others. It's generally frowned upon in reviews when the puzzles aren't intuitive. After all, it's much more satisfying to execute your intelligence than your exhaustiveness.

In case you're thinking of trying more adventure games, I think The Walking Dead, Primordia, Gemini Rue are reasonably logical, though I can't remember every detail to say so with conviction.

[kktheantihero]

Fun game

[Darkwulf]

I wouldn't really consider this a normal point and click game. This is more of a puzzle game with some adventure game elements. The controls are more clunky and picky than most as well.

[mikexor]

Hi, this was a rather simple adventure game. I've just done my first playthrough. Took me 5 hours however this includes preparing and munching a salad as well (: Regarding your specific examples:

1) You can see if the water is flowing through the small round hole on (the top of) each pipe. To be honest I solved this puzzle with a bit of bruteforcing and got lucky pretty soon.

2) That corn was the only thing she had in her inventory so you essentially have to try applying it to everything else. This is how you're "supposed" to be playing these sort of games. I agree that sometimes it's not perfectly logical, but this game helped you a lot since your character is constantly getting rid of inventory items and usually you're using them on the same screen. This is very uncommon. Most LucasArts games require you to have a notebook by your side where you're keeping track of what you've seen or did.

3) There's a lightbulb hint button in the top menu and the thunder cloud image should have helped you (it did help me).

All in all it was a short and simple game with refreshing mini puzzle games (even Arkanoid!) plus it didn't really have any kind of timing related things going on (hello Full Throttle) except of the bomb defusal and maybe the loading "crane" thing. The only annoying thing I've noticed is related to the way it's implemented: being a flash game it has somewhat clunky controls compared to other (older) adventure games. But nevertheless I've enjoyed it quite a bit and great graphics and soundtrack were surely much appreciated.

[Bling]

It's more or less a typical point and click.

It is very acessible comparing with hard-core, old school point n' clicks, like monkey island 2 or gabriel knight: sins of our fathers, or even some modern harder games.

Point-n'click adventures are based on experimentation and try-fail situations, i think.
There are many games that i can't solve without using a guide, because the puzzles don't make sense to me, or i don't know what i should do or where to go, or because i should turn something right instead of left.

I've played some adventure point n-click games and most of them i couldn't beat without a guide.

I believe there are players out there that can solve them with ease, but that's not my case. I think it takes a lot of experience and wit to do so.

[✪ Thay🦋]

o/

[Shadowspaz]

I would recommend The Dream Machine. It's released a chapter at a time (And it's up to 4 of 6 right now), but you can get them all for 15 bucks or so right now.

Anyway, I've found that the puzzles in that game all follow realistic logic. With Machinarium, there were definitely some areas that didn't make the slightest bit of sense, and I think that's common with a lot of point-and-clicks. But Dream Machine really stays grounded in its puzzles, and the storyline gets pretty twisted.

[kambotzis]

Will try it out, thanks for the recommendation

[K4ever]

You want to play the hardest puzzle adventure game ever created?

Play La Mulana.

Machinarium puzzles are child's play compared to this beast.