Machinarium

Machinarium is a puzzle point-and-click adventure game developed by Amanita Design. It was released on October 16, 2009 for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. PC and Mac demos were made available on September 30, 2009. It is also being scheduled for a future release for Wii's WiiWare.

Gameplay
The goal of Machinarium is to solve a series of puzzles and brain teasers. The puzzles are linked together by an overworld consisting of a traditional "point and click" adventure story. The overworld's most radical departure is that only objects within the player character's reach can be clicked on.

Machinarium is notable in that it contains no dialogue, neither spoken nor written. The game instead uses a system of animated thought bubbles. Easter egg back story scenes in the same format can only be revealed by idling in certain areas.

The game employs a two-tier hint system. Once per level, the player can receive a hint, which becomes increasingly vague as the game progresses. Machinarium also comes with a walkthrough, that can be accessed at any time by playing a minigame. As with dialogue, the walkthrough is not in written or spoken form, but instead a series of sketches describing the puzzle at hand and its solution. However, the walkthrough only reveals what must be done in that area, and not how that puzzle relates to the game chronology.

Plot summary
Machinarium opens with an overview of the eponymous city as a disposal flier launches from its highest tower. The player character, a robot called Josef (named after Josef Čapek, the creator of the word "robot" and brother to Karel Čapek) is dumped on a scrapheap, where he re-assembles himself and sets off for the city. Entering the city, he discovers a plot by the Black Cap Brotherhood, his three thuggish antagonists, to blow up the city's tower. Unfortunately, he is himself discovered and locked up. After breaking out of prison, Josef aids the citizens of the city, as he discovers the mischief which the Brotherhood has been working. Shortly after flooding the bad guys' room (leaving them helpless), Josef locates his girlfriend, who has been locked up and forced to cook. Unable to free her, he works his way to the top of the tower where he finds the room where the story began. A huge-headed robot sits in the middle of the room, incapacitated and gibbering. Josef recalls how the three of them lived happily until the Black Cap Brotherhood zapped this friend and kidnapped the girl. When a garbage sucker arrived to dispose of the Black cap thug, it gets Josef instead. After this revelation, Josef restores his friend to sanity, dumps the Brotherhood down a drain, and frees his girlfriend. The two of them climb back to the tower, wave goodbye to their friend, and fly off into the sunset.

Development
Machinarium was developed over a period of three years, by seven Czech developers, who financed the project with their own savings. The marketing budget for the game was a scant $1,000.

The game was in development for the Xbox 360 platform for a period of six months; however, Microsoft, whom the developers had approached to publish the title on Xbox Live Arcade, ultimately decided not to do so. Microsoft does not allow games to be released on Xbox Live Arcade without a publisher attached to the title, and the developers were reluctant to approach a third party to publish the game, as this would mean that profits for the developers from sales over Xbox Live Arcade would be greatly reduced. Subsequently, Amanita Design approached Sony, whose policies do allow for self-publishing on the PlayStation Network platform, and have submitted the game to them for approval, in order to release the game on the PlayStation Network.

Critical response
Machinarium was well-received on release; on the critic aggregate sites Game Rankings and Metacritic, the game has an average score of 84.78% and 85%, respectively.

It won the Excellence in Visual Art award at the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival and the Best Soundtrack award from PC Gamer in 2009. It was nominated for an Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction award by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences and a Milthon award in the 'Best Indie Game' category at the Paris Game Festival.

Gaming site Kotaku named it a runner-up for "PC Game of the Year 2009" along side Torchlight, losing to winner Empire: Total War. It was selected as "Adventure Game of The Year" by Turkish gaming magazine Oyungezer. Gamasutra, gamrFeed, Gamerview and the Turkish site of Tom's Hardware all selected Machinarium as the 'Best Indie Game' of 2009. AceGamez named Machinarium the 'Best Traditional Adventure Game' of 2009.

Pirate Amnesty
On August 5, 2010, Amanita Design announced that according to their estimates, only 5-15% of Machinarium players had actually paid for the game. In an effort to increase sales, the game's price was lowered from the regular $20 to $5 until August 12 so that pirates could redeem themselves, even though the offer was also available to those who hadn't illegally downloaded the game. The campaign would later be extended until August 16, resulting in 20,000 game copies sold over the whole amnesty period.