Machinarium

Amanita Design's first big point-and-click project, and a departure of sorts from their earlier Samorost games in multiple ways.

First, the world's a whole society in a city, instead of isolated characters in fairytale-esque narrative islands. You can see how it works—these robots living on top of each other, so dense their religions must share the same holy building on a strict schedule (a fun little touch!). Second, though there are plenty of environment-driven puzzles like in Samorost 1 and 2, there's also a lotta the old point-and-click sin, the Jarring Formal Minigame Puzzle. Later on it feels like you spend half the game looking at control panels and TV screens, playing an arbitrary sokoban or light-up game or whatever, rather than actually interacting with the world around you.

Still, this game's good enough I wanna end on a high note: It's a continuation of Amanita's beautiful illustration, sound, and music. The city feels dismal and lackadaisical at the same time; the sky may be smothered by perpetual grease-smear clouds, but there's vibrant life on the ground.