Samorost 2

Amanita Design is a game developer studio from the Czech Republic best known for its 2009 title Machinarium. But here we're going to be talking about an earlier game developed by them that already displayed some of the best qualities and elements of Machinarium. We are talking about Samorost, or rather Samorost 2 to be precise. Released in 2005, Samorost 2 was one of the first "full games" of Amanita Design, so let's talk about this beautiful game.

About the game

Once again, we play the same white gnome from the first Samorost title. As we are peacefully sleeping at our cozy little space home, some aliens come out of nowhere and steal fruit from our tree. As soon as this happens, our loyal dog friend gets alerted and goes out to try and scare them away, but he gets kidnapped by the evil aliens.

There's no way we can let this slip, so we'll immediately go out after these evil aliens to get our dog back and return home. But this adventure will take us to a different planet, an unknown strange planet. Once there we'll have to solve different puzzles and interact with many things to finally get to where our dog friend is being held hostage and rescue it.

A visual adventure

While Samorost is a point-and-click game, it's different from most titles in that genre. Most of these titles, such as Monkey Island and Sam & Max, have an inventory of items you can collect around. These items are used sooner or later to solve puzzles or to give them to other characters. Also, most of them feature dialogues and dialogue options, that will shape your experience a little.

But in Samorost 2 it's all about the visual adventure you'll go through. In this sense, it's a very simple game where you'll have to click everything that seems interesting to proceed. There are puzzles, but there are no items or inventory to use. Dialogues are out of the question in this game, as they aren't even a thing here

Review

Samorost is a clear example of how the simplest of games can be a beautiful experience. The plot is incredibly simple, the interactions even more, and the gameplay is super basic. But and with all that, it's still an amazing experience that will stay with you for a long time. The downside there is that it will only be with you for a long time in your memory since the game is painfully short. The whole game can be beaten in less than half an hour actually.

• Graphics and Visuals: The game is a visual marvel, not because it has amazing graphics, but the art is simply an amazing thing. The drawings are so amazing and full of life, it feels really magical. The animation is also beautiful, it's impressive how something so simple can be so amazing

• Gameplay: The gameplay here is a secondary to the game, somehow. It's more of an interactive experience, especially since it's so short. However, being that short is for the best, since with this gameplay style it would be really boring if it were longer.

• Sound: The sound in this game is great, the sounds the characters make are high quality and the soundtrack is beautiful. And the best part is that it's included individually once you purchase the game!