Armikrog Reviews
Armikrog is a beautiful and challenging adventure that suffers from game breaking glitches. Fans of the genre and The Neverhood may tough it out, but most will be turned away until these bugs are fixed.
Armikrog is a fun and quirky point-and-click adventure game with unfortunately dated mechanics.
A space explorer and his alien dog wade through a mysterious planet with a dark secret.
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.
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.
Wait and hope for some major patches for now, but even then Armikrog still won't feel actually finished. Shame.
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.
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
Many of the puzzles, for instance, are poorly conceived or utterly obtuse, and there's an awful lack of direction that frequently puts a halt to your progression
A unique puzzle game that evokes the difficulty and story-telling of yesteryear
Armikrog is a very short game, its price reflecting its brevity. However, the repeated puzzles are a regrettable misstep, and the spartan sound design woefully undercuts the impressive claymation visuals. The most impactful visuals are frontloaded, leaving no sense of narrative crescendo. Sadly, the game feels like it loses steam much too quickly.
Ultimately, Armikrog is a failure, but it's not a failure that is supposed to be hated with a fiery passion or forgotten about. If Pencil Test Studios learn their lesson, it can be a launching point for a better game that fully realizes their potential. For the player though, the best choice would be to stick with good, old Neverhood.
Cut-scenes, visuals and music aside, there's really not much game here, what with the somewhat average puzzle design and lacking rewards to keep on going. I'm happy that Tennapel and the team at Pencil Test were able to get back into the whole clay-mation business, but I can't help but think more could've been done with this.
Armikrog looks amazing, with the stop-motion claymation performed to perfection. However, that is as good as it gets, with clunky gameplay mechanics and the significant glitches found that are the true enemy for Tommynaut and Beak-Beak. This is the equivalent to being thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool without learning how to swim, and then trying to select the nearby life ring, only to discover that only the dog can select that option for some illogical reason. Armikrog feels like an unfinished game that was rushed out the door, with any form of character progression or story left on the cutting room floor. While it was created with good intentions behind it, Armikrog only serves as a sad reminder of just how great The Neverhood truly was, and that it may never be successfully replicated.
In the end, that is where I stand with Tommynaut and Beak-Beak's adventure. I am torn on it because I absolutely loved some of the things that were done, but also came away with the distinct impression that there simply should have been more.
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.
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.
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 often too old-school for its own good, and it's impregnable for those who don't know the genre for all its faults. Those that manage to scratch the surface won't necessarily be rewarded for their efforts, either, with a paper-thin plot and characters that are just too hard to root for. The art style (and opening song) may be enticing, but sadly that's all that this retro-styled point-and-clicker has to offer.
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!