That little "click here" just can't be denied

So, last night, my husband stuck his baby (aka, iPad2) on my lap, and queued up his latest obsession: Machinarium. Now, I like video games as well as the next nerd, but I was really tired from my (looooong) day, and needed what remained of my eyesight to do things like read, and possibly write.*

Well, wouldn’t you know it, despite my effort to ignore the atmospheric music (and the poor little robot waiting to be put together), curiosity won out**, and I started playing. And, of course, I loved it, and became addicted to solving all the little problems, and moving on to the next scenes. (My hubs knows me so well.)

Anyway, what I love about this game is that it focuses on puzzles and problem-solving, without the death and dismemberment of little robot if you make the wrong move. Since the whole killing thing is not an issue, you’re encouraged to explore the world and figure out how to get from point A to point B. (Plus, little robot is really cute when he dances after solving something.) And, after you solve it, you get to know more about the story and little robot’s world.

Little Robot giving hints about possible next steps

If you happen to own an iPad2, I would encourage getting this little game. I’ve only started, so I’m about a third of the way through this world. Each stage gets increasingly challenging, but that’s part of the fun. You can unlock cheats by playing a little spider game (which kind of reminds me of those Atari games from back in the day) but don’t do it too often. It’s not fun when someone tells you how to do something. I mean, the purpose of the game is to figure things out for yourself, after all, and since you can’t die, there’s no punishment for taking extra time to solve a problem.

Have you played this game yet? How do you like it?

Even if you haven’t played, isn’t Little Robot cute?? 😀

[*There was one part involving a Rubik’s cube type puzzle that completely triggered my motion sickness. I FINALLY got it sorted out, but I earned myself a headache and slight nausea doing it. For those in the know, it’s that red/green puzzle in the prison cell. Needless to say, I didn’t do much reading after that.]

[**Looking at the junkyard scene overwhelmed my curiosity mostly because it had the same landscape that I envisioned for my current work-in-progress, Scrap Metal.]