Thoughts on: Phonopolis

Amanita Design is a small Czech studio that has carved a unique niche for itself very long time ago. The original Samorost was less of an adventure game and more of a “virtual interactive playground”, where you had to do certain things to progress, but the fun was in the visuals, sounds and fun animations. But it wasn’t until Machinarium of 2009, that was their first commercial release, that they’ve achieved fame, and that game was far more of a conventional puzzle focused point and click adventure. Since then they’ve gone back and forth – sometimes focusing more on the playful interactions and fun, sometimes attempting to make a puzzle game and as far as my preferences go – I always liked them being more fun and playful. Chuchel and Botanicula remain their best titles in my eyes, but nonetheless I do like to check everything they do just to enjoy the visuals and the music. Phonopolis is, unfortunately for me, a puzzle focused release. But I still liked it enough.

As is typical for their titles, while Phonopolis is a point and click adventure game, it doesn’t always operate in a “conventional” way. Usually, you don’t have the character do something, rather you use your mouse to interact with the world directly in some fun and silly way. The player is essentially an otherworldly force that helps the characters along the way, manipulating the world to help them along, even though no one in the game acknowledges this fact. Most of such interactions are fun and silly in a good way, the visuals are wonderful and the music is not among Floex’ best, but very good. If you like puzzle focused games, you will probably like the gameplay too. As for me – I was fine with most of them, though a few of the late game puzzles were, in my opinion, not designed and explained as well as they could’ve been.

The plot, this time around, is evocative of the crappy life people used to have in Eastern Europe in the 20th century under the communist government. And as such, some of the scenes and visual gags for me immediately worked as satire. But for people less familiar with this reality, it might not work as well. Though, of course, the story goes deeper than just a direct satire on a specific period of history, and explores the far deeper societal issues, with the ending perfectly reflecting that.

In other words – people who prefer when Amanita Design focuses on puzzles, like with Machinarium, would probably like this game a lot. Apart from the few bugs that still pop up here and there, but are usually fixable with a simple Main Menu restart. For people like me, who prefer when the studio does games that are more about fun, Phonopolis is not the best choice. But it is still a solid and charismatic adventure.