Proper movement - monkey Island 3 had fast travel 20 years ago. This could be forgiven if only they had included. This breaks one of the core principles of good puzzle game design - the puzzle is the challenge once you've spotted the correct method, it should be effortless to execute. Several times I looked at the hint solutions in frustration only to find out that I already had the correct approach and the games daft controls and icon interaction setup prevented me from doing it. This results in lots of trying to click on things and giving up, only to realise you had to be stood in the exact correct position to make it interactable. This worked in games in 1992 so why they would remove this feature baffles me. If I see something on the other side of the screen and click on it, I expect the character to take care of the movement necessary to get me there. But which genius decided that the interaction icon would only appear when you are in range of an object? Absolutely clownish. Terrible interaction highlighting - I'm all for objects not glowing to alert the player to their usefulness at least in an adventure game where observation is key. And especially doing the wrong action when trying to interact. Cue much changing height when unintended and not being able to walk where you want to.
This is clumsily overlayed with the same cursor control as walking and interacting. Sadly, a small handful of design choices nearly ruined this for me, and they are nearly all quality of life features that I imagine could be implemented in a day (I made that up - I'm not a coder).ĭaft controls - you control your robots height (low, normal or super tall) and this affects certain things you can reach. The puzzles are good, the challenge level is set at the right level, and there's a good built in hints system if you're really struggling, so no need to leave the game and ruin the fun with some unwarranted internet searches.
MACHINARIUM MUSIC PUZZLE SERIES
As with that series it's beautiful, has fantastic music, is charmingly off the wall in its animation and design, and features no text at all - only visual clues. It's a puzzle adventure game in the classic Monkey Island vein, by Amanita games (of Samorost fame). Machinarium's been in my library for years - this week I played through it.
0 kommentar(er)
