From the minds behind Earthworm Jim and The Neverhood comes
a space adventure the likes of which you've never seen before.
The story follows intrepid explorer Tommynaut and his blind
talking dog Beak-Beak who find themselves stranded on a strange world and
locked in the titular fortress Armikrog, along the way solving fiendish puzzles
and unveiling the many mysteries within.
This title first crossed my path when I heard that Doug
TenNapel creator of Earthworm Jim was working on a new title along with Michael
J. Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 providing the voice of Tommynaut and
Rob Paulsen of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles voicing Beak-Beak.
At that point the Kickstarter had already closed and
surpassed its $900,000 target which meant I wasn't able to get my hands on any
backer goodies sadly but I did monitor the titles progress and ogle the teaser
footage they released.
Right from the get-go this game throws quirky right at you,
the opening sequence has a catchy song introducing the characters and guiding
you through the events leading up to their crash-landing on Spiro 5, then the
scene shifts to the beautifully crafted stop-motion world where Tommynaut and
Beak-Beak are immediately attacked and run for cover in a nearby fortress.
From this moment you are in control, guiding our duo through
unknown areas and strange terrain, a variety of puzzles will block your way
needing our team to split up at times with Beak-Beak squeezing his way through
tunnels and speaking with the tower dwelling Octovators whilst Tommynaut
manages the heavy lifting with switches and blocks and even at times,
babysitting.
Every room is lovingly crafted with neat little touches down
to foliage, creatures and even the lighting which brings a great physicality to
the title, the way the characters move and interact with everything is seamless
and the little detail in some elements are a really nice touch, I especially
liked the way Beak-Beak coughs up any inventory items he has found ready for
Tommynaut to use.
The game sounds great, from the soundtrack by Terry Scott
Taylor, who composed the music for The Neverhood, to the small ambient effects
and sounds the creatures make, as well as the criminally underused voices which
are great when heard but sadly few and far between.
Being a point and click adventure, the puzzles range from fairly straight forward to hair-tearingly difficult and the learning curve is as steep as where at no point will you have your hand held, sometimes the clues make themselves known quickly but at times I found myself with no idea what I was supposed to do.
This is where the game gains most of its length, originally I had spent an hour or so navigating the first of the four towers until I accidentally erased my game save and had to start from scratch, at that point I then breezed through the tower in fifteen minutes.
A couple of hours had passed and I'd long overtook my last save, ploughing through sections feeling pleased with myself for overcoming some very tough puzzles until I reached a point where I'm supposed to make an image of a robot on the side of a huge wall in order to fling an egg into a nest and complete some gondola tracks, yeah, I was as baffled as you are now, with no idea where I was meant to be looking for ideas on how my robot was to look.
So the games completion time really depends on how you are with the puzzles, overall I clocked up around 3 1/2 which I was semi-pleased with as it meant I got to see more cut scenes and I really liked the way the last puzzles tie together each of the towers and reveals what’s been happening all along but I was disappointed that it was all over with no replayability.
At times I also found it a little glitchy, with the onscreen cursor not showing or both that and the mouse cursor showing simultaneously, as well as sound issues where the volume would drift from really quiet in some places to overly loud in others, neither of these spoilt my time with Armikrog but with no cursor showing on my first play it did confuse me and made playing that much harder.
If you're looking for something short and sweet to kill an evening then you could co far worse than invest in Armikrog, it will make you laugh, smile and frown all at the same time however if you're looking for a title with depth and longevity this is not for you.
Armikrog is out now on PC Coming soon to Wii U & PS4