The ambiance, art, mood, and creative imagination of Machinarium are unparalleled. It takes you on a journey of steampunk, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic romance & rescue in a dystopian world, yet at the same time has the simplicity of two youngsters who are fond of each other dealing with bullies at school and ultimately getting reunited. Aside from the art, the soundtrack is an absolute masterpiece of its own, it fills every frame of the game with a deeply woven tale of charming, rebellious innocence that has to hang on in the face of adversity in a cruel world, and that, against all odds, love always wins. And yet, it is all presented with a humorous, clunky, almost muppet-like tone. The graphical style of Machinarium bolsters the aforementioned effects. It is visually extremely pleasing to the eye, almost like a series of animated paintings telling you the tale of a young robot in search for his beloved, in a steampunk dystopian world mostly dominated by machines. At its core, Machinarium is a point-and-click adventure puzzle game and it does what it does at its finest. This is not a game that artificially ramps up the difficulty and punishes you for failure. It is a game solely focused on puzzle solving. It is so cleverly designed so as you're never stuck in a loop and there's always a way out of every puzzle. In-game walkthroughs for each level are available to access, but you gotta earn that walkthrough by completing a small minigame, to discourage the player from always resorting to the walkthroughs, albeit doing it in an entertaining way and not punishing the player should they want to seek guidance. This is a beautiful, brilliant masterpiece with a lot of replay value and packs a lot more emotional and sensational weight than you would expect. 10/10.
