God, this game is frustrating. Totally at odds with the mellow soundtrack and ambient storyline. I think it's mainly down to how you have to move the little guy to right next to what he can interact with, so you spend most of the time watching his slow, Flash-animated ass waddle around the screen.

General bitching aside, I've come to a puzzle in which you have red and green dots placed onto a grid made up of three overlapping circles. The aim is to get the green dots to form a triangle in the centre by rotating any of the circles, either clockwise or anti-clockwise. The tip book you get with the game just has a picture of the puzzle and the two FAQs on GameFAQs inform me that the puzzle is different each time, but "you should easily be able to solve it".

Well it's driving me up the wall, so has anyone got any general tips, like things to watch out for or general techniques? I'm at the stage now where I'm just randomly clicking on the screen while reading a book in the hope that it will randomly just work.

Have you tried the in-game clue system?

Try and focus on getting two reds on each edge of the triangle, rather than all of the greens in the triangle. It should be easier to get the reds in place than the greens.

I see that puzzle come up as a problem for a lot of people and I guess I was lucky because I got it in a few minutes. There is stuff later on I found much more challenging.

I didn't actually, but it seems to just show the next objective, not how to do it - for example, when you're meant to give the robot a cigarette, it simply shows you giving him one. It doesn't tell you how to go about making one. As I said, the walkthrough/hint book you get with the game, which normally does tell you specifically what to do, only had a picture of the puzzle without any solution.

Well anyway, I have managed to do it - did it a while ago, actually - was just playing Betrayal at Krondor and forgot to check the thread. Just blind luck and just as I was on the edge of giving up for the day. If these more challenging puzzles are these kind of abstract puzzles, I'm probably going to be in a lot of trouble. I'm better with "real world" puzzles, where at least some modicum of common sense or intuition can be applied. If it's just the "puzzle for puzzles sake" kind of thing, like sliding tiles to make a picture and all that stuff, I lose patience with it pretty quickly.

*****There be spoilers beyond here**********

Best walkthrough I've found

I had a blast with this game till I got to the space invader game. Simply would not respond quick enough for me to play the game. After an hour I gave up in disgust, might try it again . . . killed the mood though . . . =)

Thanks. Well I've already played that side-scrolling shoot 'em up that you have to do to get the in-game hints, and that felt laggy and imprecise. If this Space Invaders game is worse than that, it won't be pleasant at all... And yeah, I know what you mean about the mood being killed, though obviously at a different point for me. Unlike Broken Sword or Gabriel Knight, the Machinarium story is slight and vague. It's pleasant enough but in no way has the depth, addictiveness and spark that their storylines do. As such, when you get stuck it's just so easy to think "Ah, screw it."

I'm kind of the opposite, a real 7th Guest-style puzzle I can sink my teeth into and solve, but abstract adventure game puzzles like I just experienced in Return to Zork drive me up the wall.

I really enjoyed it for the change of pace, I would call it a casual game. Liked the soundtrack, artwork and game play as well. Wish it had more responsiveness to the controls. I was excited to see a Space Invaders game but it was always 10 to 12 clicks behind (more at times), just not the right game for Flash. Tried slow clicking, medium clicking etc. . . . still I like the game overall . . . a real change from Painkiller . . . =)

I had a hard time with those mini games and hint book (due to the sluggishness) but then I realized the keyboard can be used to control them (arrow keys and space, i think). It responds MUCH quicker and actually made those mini-games less annoying.

If you're already using the keyboard then I have no idea why it's responding slowly.

I was stuck on the third screen, but managed to get to the fourth thanks to the walkthrough, but when I realised just how much of this is not puzzle but grind, I'm starting to hate the game.

When are devs going to make a REAL puzzler game with LOGIC??? LOGIC PLEASE. Not just endless trial and error. Fuck this shit. I'm disliking Monkey Island chapters (bought all 5 of them on sale too) because I can't even get through the first one due to the sheer illogic of it. Sure, it's funny and well done but the logic just does NOT work. I got as far as the maze and well... It's fucked, that's what it is. Why should I have to go online to find walkthroughs? *sighs* I guess I'm gonna have to walkthrough Monkey Island all the way just to reward myself with seeing the story and then delete.

Is it possible to swap games on Steam? Anyone want to swap me something for Machinarium?

Actually I was using the keyboard to begin with . . trying everything else as well. It was like playing underwater, delays accumulating till all I could do was watch the game play out. I moved my save to another system, quad core, and it was the same. Slowed my clicks, sped up, timed them etc.with no success. Still, I did enjoy the game for the most part but that one screen took away any desire for me to finish.
I agree that the puzzles were harder than the game required, seems they forgot it was mostly a casual game. . . =)

Doubtful that I will buy a second release.

Monkey island games do require a walkthrough because (as you said) the puzzles are not based on any deduction, simply try every item with everything else (I mean, why would you think to use a banana picker with the nose of a statue of a giant monkey head?). However it's worth using it as a last resort, a lot of the humour in the games are derived from trying to find things out.

I'm surprised people have such a problem with Machinarium though, I played it end to end in 1 long evening session (6 hours). Had to use the book a few of times, but once again only when I'd tried all I could think of.

The best walkthrough is watching a gameplay video on youtube. Of course to many that takes away all the fun.