During the weekend, even Ars takes an occasional break from discussing Wi-Fi patent owners or the latest Nokia phone. Weekend Ar(t)s is a chance to share what we're watching/listening/reading or otherwise consuming this week.
Moving across the country comes with an inherent opportunity cost—there's only so much space in your storage unit of preference (suitcase, car, duffel bag...). Shirts get left behind. Furniture goes up for sale. And if you, like me, lack foresight... gaming consoles gather dust at parents' homes. My main gaming device now is an iPad.
The biggest issue with this? Most (if not all) hyper-anticipated, hyper-advertised games are console-based. Reading about the insane Mass Effect 3 happenings is much less exciting than experiencing the game and forming your own opinion. Even when there's a game I 1) can get justifiably excited for and 2) know will come to the iPad, I'm left waiting longer than fellow gamers.
Case in point: Amanita Design, makers of the fabulous Machinarium. When the game became available for my device last fall, it gave me everything I want in an iPad gaming experience. To start, it's a single player, non-social experience. I can enjoy it whenever I like without depending on others or waiting for someone to respond (the Words With Friends or Draw Something variety is not for me). Controls are simple—pure point and click, like the Goosebumps' Escape From Horrorland of my youth—which is important on iPad. But gameplay is exploration- and puzzle-based. Icons change when you approach items you can interact with, minigames exist to provide hints. Simplicity doesn't translate to ease in Machinarium. It's enough of a challenge to keep me engaged for lengthy gaming sessions (sorry Scribblenauts).
The main selling point of Machinarium though, may be its aesthetics. The soundtrack caught on so strongly that someone wrote a Wikipedia entry for it. The visual design won the 2009 Independent Games Festival award for art and it gets referenced in virtually any mention of the game.
It's a fully realized game that was then offered for the iPad 2. It happens to work within the device's constraints, from both a gamplay and aesthetic standpoint. The interwoven thread with those two lenses is the narrative, a slowly revealing but lush story worth finishing. The gameplay dictates that each puzzle solved is just part of a larger enigma, clue by clue is earned until you see the full picture. And, as the initial Ars review put it, it's an engaging tale worth finishing. "You're a robot who has been trapped in some sort of prison-like facility and you need to escape... Though initially appearing to be nothing more than a cute adventure starring quirky robots, the game slowly reveals itself to be a touching tale of separated lovers and a crumbling society straining underneath an oppressive leadership. Think of it as Wall-E meets 1984 with a steampunk makeover."
Next up for Amanita, in mere weeks, is Botanicula. The trailer doesn't reveal much, but it promises many of the traits that made Machinarium the best iPad gaming experience I've ever had: an exploratory game set in a world that looks and sounds gorgeous (hopefully Botanicula's gameplay follows its predecessor's suit). Without my console, it's the most I can hope for. Computer gamers get it on April 19; here's hoping iPad isn't too far behind.
reader comments
46