When comparing The Journey Down vs Machinarium, the Slant community recommends Machinarium for most people. In the question“What are the best point and click adventure games on PC?” Machinarium is ranked 1st while The Journey Down is ranked 20th. The most important reason people chose Machinarium is:
The player is forced to move their character across the map in order to find objects of interest. This, coupled with the great sound design and soundtrack which also do their part in giving cues as to where the objects are and if the player is close, really help you immerse into the atmosphere and art style of Machinarium.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Unique Style
Self described as an "afro-caribbean" vibe. With character faces that resemble tribal masks as well as the main characters sporting Caribbean accents there is no doubt the game was designed with black culture in mind.
Pro Quality presentation
The characters are 3D rendered on top of beautiful hand painted backgrounds with it all blending nicely to a very neatly finished look.
Pro Satisfying puzzles
The Journey Down offers challenging puzzles that give the user quite a bit of satisfaction when solved. Not that they are too difficult but just not that the game hands the answers to the player on a platter either.
Pro The gameplay is perfectly interwoven with the overall aesthetic and atmosphere of the game
The player is forced to move their character across the map in order to find objects of interest. This, coupled with the great sound design and soundtrack which also do their part in giving cues as to where the objects are and if the player is close, really help you immerse into the atmosphere and art style of Machinarium.
Pro Beautiful art style
Machimariums hand drawn graphics exude a very steam punk style that definitely has a very unique look by being all hand drawn.
Pro Challenging puzzles
The puzzles are quite challenging to the point of frustration but in the end give a sense of immense reward when figured out.
Pro Interesting protagonist
The main character and the one controlled by the player is just a normal, average, everyday robot. He doesn't have any special powers or abilities other than being able to slightly extend his midriff in order to reach high ledges or making his body shorter. He's pretty much an ordinary robot thrust into an extraordinary situation.
Pro Built-in hint system
For those that do find some of the puzzles too challenging there is an inbuilt hint system shown through "thought bubbles" on top of the playable character.
Every level has its own hint when pressed and it's usually a hint on where to go or what kind of object you need. Although it's advised not to rely on the hint system too much since it takes away from the experience of actually enjoying the game.
Pro The well-designed gameplay mechanics avoid making the game boring to the player
Unlike most point-and-click games, objects of interest in Machinarium light up only when the main character is close to them; this completely changes the way the game is played. In point-and-click games where this is not the case, the gameplay is usually reduced to aimlessly flailing the cursor around waiting for something to light up.
Machinarium on the other hand completely avoids this, keeping levels interesting and the player interested to the game.
Cons
Con Chapters are extremely short
Even though the game is broken up into separately purchasable chapters, each chapter is pretty short, even when considering all chapters combined the game in full will still be short.
Con Items may be difficult to find due to similar colors
At points in the game there are needed items that blend in too well with their surrounding making it quite difficult to actually see them.