Armikrog Reviews
As an existing fan of Doug TenNapel's previous work, I'm very happy that Armikrog is finally available for console.
Overall Armikrog is a fun little puzzler. It is very polished experience, and I had an absolute blast playing this fine claymation game for my Armikrog review. I love point and click games, and having that combined with claymation made this even better. The game might have seen several delays during its development, but in the end, the wait was well worth it. If you're a fan of The Neverhood then you should be downloading this game right now!
Armikrog is a bit of a diamond in the rough. It's rough and it's a bit awkward but it's a solid choice if you're after a bit of console pointing and clicking. Just don't go into it expecting a 90s style adventure game with witty dialogue out the wazoo and plenty of items to rub on other items at your leisure. This is a very focused title and it both benefits and suffers for that.
Though it starts with a glimmer of excellence, Armikrog's luster fades over time. It inevitably feels empty, falling flat in its effort to develop its characters, fill out its world with compelling atmosphere, and provide consistent puzzles with sound logic. While the game's claymation visuals are delightful and unique, that quality alone isn't enough to make it worth recommending. What remains is a half-baked experience that, for all the personality it wears on its sleeve, fails to captivate in any meaningful way.
A great if flawed game that presents a lot of potential that might have been wasted in this first iteration of a fantastic idea. If this is the direction Pencil Test Studios is going, then I want to see more. It's fun, though short, and a bit buggy. But overall it's a great idea to pursue.
The puzzles often require the player to merely regurgitate a pattern from one part of the world to another.
Armikrog is a somewhat functional game that is unfortunately full of archaic game design, half-baked ideas, glitches galore, insultingly repetitive puzzles, and unrealized potential.
I'm not saying Armikrog isn't worth a go; it's charming, happy, and reminiscent of the time when stop motion was the most impressive style of animation. The game is delightfully odd and will absolutely make you laugh at least a handful of times. Unfortunately, the overwhelming lack of care put into some stuff that modern developers really shouldn't be getting wrong is noticable.
Armikrog is a decent game that holds great respect to the classic 90s-style cartoon humour using clay as the art form. The responsiveness of clicking interactive objects of any kind is extremely poor, and may feel like it does not work in some cases, but will work later. The puzzles are excellent and provide great use of tracking down hints and clues throughout the areas. The voice acting is pure comedic art; however, not enough is in the game to truly allow it to reach stellar results.
Doug, I love your work as a whole, but Armikrog feels like an unpolished mess. If the entire game had received the effort that was put towards the visuals, this would have easily been the spiritual successor to games that I have very fond memories of. This clay could have used some more time in the kiln, that's for sure.
So much of Armikrog feels neglectful and lazy, lacking anything to make it stand out. Even the claymation look of it doesn't save it from the carelessness put into it. It's hard to see where that million dollars went. All of that said, it isn't terrible, but if you've never had the pleasure of playing The Neverhood, do yourself a favor and pick that up instead.
Armikrog squanders the real, doing nothing interesting with its sense of space and temptation to explore, because every new chamber seems identical to the last. In fact, if The Neverhood has a sequel, it may be 2003's Samorost, from Amanita Designs—a precious cosmos of tinkering little mysteries. By the time it's done, Armikrog feels more like The Neverhood's mulligan. As if this is the first one, the prototype, the do-over, with less to offer than familiarity, all of which leads to the more lavish incarnation made nearly two decades ago. And after that loses steam, and you want a bit of action in your life, then you make Skullmonkeys.
Armikrog is a missed opportunity, but despite its design flaws and technical issues, it's worth playing even if just for the unique visual experience.
Armikrog's memory puzzles and tenuous humour are a low point in the adventure game renaissance.
Armikrog is a game that has had obvious care and exacting attention given to its visual design and animation… at the expense of almost everything else. A bland and woefully short game with asinine puzzles and an unresponsive interface, it's beautiful but that's about it.
So I think of Armikrog as a tragic point-and-click adventure. It's sad because of what it might have been, and because it might have lent itself to further episodes set in Tommynaut's delightfully retro universe. But given the state of the game before us, I can't imagine we'll be visiting it again any time soon.
Armikrog does not surpass The Neverhood, but just like a successor to any celebrated piece of media, that would have been an impossible task. However, it does contain a unique charm in its own right which fans of The Neverhood or other old-school point-and-click adventures will especially appreciate. Those followers will likely forgive its faults for a taste of nostalgia, but others new to this realm may find it too outdated and unpolished.
Armikrog fails as an adventure, a story, a Neverhood successor, and on any other level you might have hoped for.
With a little more financial support and a lot more play-testing, Armikrog could have been something special. As it stands, however, it seems incomplete.
The audio in the game is excellent… the original soundtrack is perfectly orchestrated, with tracks that change depending on the environment and the current on-screen action