Machinarium

Amanita Design have been making stunning point-and-click adventures for over 20 years, knocking it out of the park straight away with 2003’s surreal, adorable mini-adventure Samorost. The studio’s combination of collage art and adorable animation was immediately enticing, given further life through the frequent use of mouth-made sound effects on top of scores by musician Floex (Tomáš Dvořák).

The developer is responsible for so many fantastic games, including the insect-filled Botanicula; one of the funniest games ever, Chuchel; and peculiar puzzle-cum-adventures like Pilgrims and Creaks. But it’s perhaps Machinarium that cemented the studio’s reputation.

This wordless point-and-click adventure, with a heavy emphasis on puzzles, is about helping a robot called Josef. Dumped on a scrapheap, you help the little tin man to return to the city and attempt to prevent a plot by some evil robots who want to blow up the city tower, all while looking to reunite with his girlfriend Berta.

There’s no dialogue at all here, neither written nor spoken, the game instead using pictograms to communicate. This immediately gives the Czech game an international understanding, and 4 million sales for a self-funded tiny team is proof of just how accessible and adorable it is.