I go through phases of playing games and if something interests me I’ll usually play it quite intensively until I get bored. That might be a couple of days or might be a week, it all depends on how the mood, and the game, takes me. Increasingly I tend to go for Indie games, stuff like World of Goo and Braid, or the smaller releases on the Playstation Network for PS3, like Flower (still probably one of the most fantastic “gaming” experiences I’ve had), Fat Princess and Noby Noby Boy.

Anyway recently I’ve been playing a couple of Indie titles – Machinarium and Eufloria (formerly called Dyson before release). Here’s a little potted, not very professional review of both of them

Machinarium

I first saw some footage of this months ago and the art style really got me interested. It’s basically a point and click adventure and is a fairly linear experience. The art style is fantastic, hand drawn, quirky and lushly coloured. The music is spot on as well (I ordered it directly from the developers and got the album in MP3 format which is well worth listening to on its own). As for the gameplay, well Machinarium is part of the long history of point and click adventures – the controls are simple (if a little fiddly in places) and the puzzles are interesting although in some areas they’re not really as obvious as they could be. It’s been a very enjoyable game to play but I wish it had been longer which is really my only negative point to make. Well worth the money though.

Eufloria

Again the art style hooked me into this first of all back when it was previewed as Dyson. It’s clean, minimalistic and procedurally generated and works a treat. Eufloria is basically a game of conquering asteroids with your seeds, growing a big enough army of them and taking over the neighbours. It is engaging, at least for a while, but the biggest problem I have with it is the pace of play. It’s often easiest to just leave it running to build up your seed numbers whilst you check your email or surf the web. The other problem, which is compounded by the pace of play to end up leaving you a little bored, is the lack of variation between levels. It kind of feels like a slog after a while – there are some little changes, a few new ‘power ups’ but basically the game stays the same throughout. Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy it and am more than satisfied with the entertainment I got from it, but my interest waned pretty quickly once it became obvious that it was really more of the same.

So they’ve been my time sinks recently. I’m still waiting with baited breath for Fez, which should arrive sometime next year on the Xbox. It’s the only reason I haven’t sold it