Play with a Samorost Today!

Two years ago I took this photo of tree stumps that looked like they were up to something.

Don't ask me what they're up to, but it looked pretty scandalous to me.

Now I'm playing Jakub Dvorský's award-winning game Samorost--which in Czech means a root or piece of wood that resembles a creature.

Mmmm, a samorost*.  So, thanks to the Czechs, this gnarled thing has a name after all:
* * *

Back to the game by Amanita Design.  It's set on actual pieces of knobby wood you might find lying on a forest, with a few weird creatures to boot. 

Up-close the samorost landscape looks otherworldly and surreal ( It's like René Magritte and Tim Burton were the consultants), and the story that unfolds is whimsical, exotic, and downright funny.  (Think giant slugs with hammers and flatulent platypuses)

Your goal is to guide your all-white pyjama-clad character through the convulated strange world and execute a series of actions to a. deflect an oncoming meteor-samorost from your samorost-home planet (in Part 1), and b. to save your kidnapped dog (in Part 2).

If you were bred on McGyver episodes (which I was not), and know a thousand possible uses for a cork, for instance, Samorost is peanuts.

But for the rest of us who think a cork is just for plugging bottles, Samorost is a heady challenging game as you rack your brain trying to figure out where else you can put your hot little fingers on just to get you out of trouble.  Plus you have to do things in a certain order, or you can't progress to the next level.

Yes, it's a point-and-click puzzle, but clicking blindly on the whole surface area of your screen until something interesting happens is not the point.

The point is: Samorost is fun, (both 1 and 2--and the third sequel called Machinarium, featuring a discarded robot this time, even more so).  The graphics is artfully and unapologetically gritty, it's almost like 3D.  And the soundtrack by Tomáš Dvořák--luxurious, ethereal, and first-rate (as if Björk will cut in any time).  

Just listen to one of the tracks, Podzemi, will you?

	Tomas Dvorak - Podzemi .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Samorost may be a fleeting and one-time thing (you can finish the game in just a couple of hours), but one thing's for sure, it's unforgettable.  You won't look at a decaying piece of log or a washed-up driftwood the same way again.


* * *
This is what happens when I thumb through an old issue of Wired magazine--the paper version, with recommended links on the Web, but which you can't click because, hello, it's paper--not unless you drop the magazine and actually head over to your PC.

So Wired had a nice thumbnail review of Samarost 2 (a charming blend of mushroom-and-moss naturalism and retro sci-fi).  Four years the magazine's been collecting dust on the shelf, and it's only now I decide type in that link.  It's never too late

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* An alternate meaning is a person who doesn't care about the rest of the world.