The backgrounds are a combination of photo collage and hand drawn art that looks entirely unique, and the eclectic soundtrack evokes a sense of mystery and melancholy. As you move from planet to planet, you discover more of the game’s narrative in the form of NPCs and collectible graphic novels.īut even without the hook of an overarching story, the environments of Samorost 3 are so richly detailed that you’ll want to explore just for the sake of exploring. The game then settles into a comfortable groove: land on a new planet, explore, and take off again. Other times nothing will happen, the space gnome will shrug, and you move on to the next thing to click.Īfter an early sequence that has you assembling a spaceship out of a disposable water bottle and what appears to be a garlic bulb (things only get weirder from there), you fly away from your home planet to explore new worlds. Sometimes you play a clarinet ditty and summon ghostly outlines that tell tales of woe or that cause mushrooms to sprout or that awaken giant moths. The horn is the only permanent item in your inventory (this isn’t the sort of game where you have to sort through dozens of different doodads), and you use it to listen to certain spots in the environment. Your journey begins when a horn falls out of the sky. With a development period of over five (!) years, Samorost 3 feels like the consummation of Amanita’s ethos: endlessly charming, occasionally frustrating, and deeply suffused with a sense of wonder.

Playing it today, it acts as a sort of proof of concept for Amanita’s later releases - wordless, minimalist, and surreal - and was followed by Samorost 2, breakout hit Machinarium, and the nature-themed Botanicula. This contemplative style of point-and-click adventure has been Amanita Design’s signature since the release of its first game, the original Samorost, in 2003. You’re meant to take a breath, poke around, and watch what happens. Nothing is spelled out for the player, quite literally. Save, load, and quit are all represented by simple, self-explanatory symbols.įrom the very outset, Samorost 3 positions itself as a game about observation and interpretation. Even the main menu is deliberately minimalist. The unnamed, pajama-clad space gnome that you control communicates purely through grunts and gestures, and the NPCs that you encounter speak in animated speech bubbles. Aside from the credits and the occasional numerals or coded sequence of letters, there’s no written text in the game.

Botanicula 3 water