Machinarium

It’s cozy, warm, safe,relaxing gives me the love touches I wish I had from a girl.
Still love it after all these years. It helped develop the imagination of my autistic son. Just lovely. I now play it with my wife's boyfriend. Thank you, Amanita design for this masterpiece.
Writing this review made me realize I have 5 versions of this game: PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Steam, and iOS. I love this game and have beaten it on all of the platforms I own it. Loved it so much, in fact, that I’ve amassed all other Amanita Design games on Steam except for Creaks, which I plan to buy soon.
Machinarium was a game of my childhood and I've finished it about 20 times, so I'm looking at it with huge rose-coloured glasses, but I really absolutely love the game. The game’s artistic direction is top notch. It is incredibly charming. I initially bought the game because the art really intrigued me, and throughout the whole game, the art never stopped being impressive. Settings and atmosphere tend to be the bread and butter for adventure games like this, and the world that's been drawn for Machinarium is seriously wonderful. The environmental illustrations do not skimp on the details. Every character in the game is animated with tons of personality. Each character is memorable, and that's particularly impressive, since there's no dialog. The music is really quirky and cool, too, and it adds to the atmosphere of a decaying town full of robots.
The late nights being immersed in its world full of darkly poetic ambiance, trying to figure out its myriad puzzles and pathways will always be unforgettable to me. The atmosphere in Machinarium is just something different. I remember when I've heard By The Wall for the first time... I don't even know how to describe it but instantly I was kinda sad, melancholic. It's very emotional. Its humor is hilarious. The art style. Robots band and total soundtrack. The main story. The small world that needs freedom and democracy. It's state of art. Everything about it. The art style is so interesting to look at and super unique, it has one of my favourite ever soundtracks and for a game that only has around thirty different screens, it feels like the world they built is alive and easy to fully immerse yourself in it’s atmosphere.
I really recommend Machinarium very much. The graphics are absolutely gorgeous and the soundtrack is a masterpiece that inspired the soundtracks of so many other games and will most likely influence future games for years to come. It's a very short game but one absolutely worth playing. You'd be missing out on one of the best point and click adventure games if you didn’t give it a chance. What are you waiting for?
10/10

People still playing this game in 2025 warms my heart. From the music, atmosphere, and artistic direction, and the (relatively) well designed puzzles....you get quickly integrated into this world. There are some head-scratchers in this game, so don't feel too bad if you get stumped, but if you saw the game and thought "this looks neat", you won't be disappointed, and it's worth playing. If you're an older sort, and want another take on a game like "Oddworld: Abe's Odyssey", this did scratch that itch too.

My top number 1 game I ever played, out of all 30 years of gaming. I even got a tattoo on my right arm, both Josef and his girlfriend and the owl and the cat :D

The soundtrack from Tomas Dvorak is part of my daily live, I love listening to it. I even got both 12'' vinyls from the game music, and Josef toy of course.

So you can clearly see my commitment to this game and the love I have for it.

I've played it around 10 times over since October 2009, on numerous platforms. I remember it was a rainy October, and my friend recommended it to me. I instantly fell in love with everything it had to offer, and now it is a love relationship that will last forever.

Can't wait for the sequel one day!

This game is incredibly creative—especially perfect for kids. I first played it as a child, and now, about 15 years later, I’ve returned to it. Beyond the nostalgia, it reminds me of a simpler, quieter time when the world didn’t feel so noisy. We would sit down, fully absorbed in the game, solving puzzles without the constant pull of social media or outside distractions.
It’s not just about growing older; this game belongs to a different era—a beautiful one. I even let some modern kids try it, and instead of engaging with the puzzles, they immediately tried to Google the solutions. That’s the opposite of what the game encourages: thinking, struggling, and finding your own answers.
The friendship between Josef, the little robot, and Berta, the girl he’s trying to save, is quietly heartwarming. It’s also fascinating to see how Josef brings small moments of joy to the city as he moves through it—maybe that’s what societies should have been about, rather than what they often turned out to be.
Despite all that, I still love it. This game is timeless.

used to play this game with my dad 10 years ago, honestly might be my first game ever. top 3 puzzle games oat imo

Such a great point-and-click game, it has a wonderfully whimsical charm, and the art style is absolutely beautiful. The music is fantastic, the sound effects are spot on, and the puzzles are really enjoyable. Overall, it’s just a lovely experience.

First, be aware that this is a short appetizer of a game. 3-5 hours depending on your experience with the Point-&-Click genre. I would personally only buy it when it's on discount, as I think it's somewhat overpriced for how short it is at its normal price, but your mileage may vary.
That aside, the gameplay you're getting here is pretty much like any other Point-&-Click. There's a lot of puzzles, a few of which don't really make sense? But most of them are pretty good, and it's enough to keep your brain tinkering for some time, but if you're new to this genre and puzzle games in general, you may find this one just a bit harder.
There is a cool mechanic in this game where there is a hint book, but instead of making it immediately accessible, it's locked behind a short side-scrolling shooter mini-game. The mini-game itself is honestly kind of boring but that does help by making it so that you'll only use the hint book when you REALLY need to while still not keeping you completely in the dark by having one instead of no hint system whatsoever. One really important note is that you have to do this mini-game PER room so that beating it once doesn't give you the solutions for the whole game. I personally think it's a good balancing act (just so you know, it does open and look like the pages of the book and they exclusively show illustrations on how to do everything; they don't drop feed it to you, they give it to you all at once) (that's what-). :3
Anyway, you can tell from the steam page photos that this game looks absolutely beautiful (the artist actually drew everything with his left hand for the non-linear look!). It aged like the finest of wine. And oh my goodness so has its music. You absolutely have to listen to this soundtrack on your own time because this is so slept on it's criminal. Just listen to "Mr. Handagote" with a good pair of headphones and you'll see what I mean. Both of these aspects combined seriously make the game feel SO MUCH more immersive than it has any right to be, to the point where it's more immersive than some AAA open-world games (yes I mean it). It really powers your imagination on what more this world has that it hasn't shown you.
The game does have a story, but it's really quite basic and while it does give purposes that what you're doing, it's definitely not why you're playing the game. Speaking of which most of the exposition in this game is given in a really weird, optional way; you specifically just have to not move and do nothing. Eventually the player robot will start to reminisce about past times in this big, white, animated bubble which tells you just a bit more about your main companion and the enemies (and I believe that's it but I may have missed some). There's actually one of them on the first picture on the steam page lol. They're not terribly interesting but the animation's interesting to watch and it does get you invested in the characters just a bit.
If you're a Point-&-Click enjoyer or even just into puzzle games, this is easily a must-play. Calling it a full-on masterpiece is probably too much because of the short length with this incredible world (normally that wouldn't be an issue for me but this world has so much potential it's insane I NEED TO SEE MORE- anyway) and the, mostly good, yes, but not incredible puzzles. It gets an 8/10 from me critically (so A-tier), even though it's a 10/10 in my heart.