Amanita Design is Back with "Osada"

After the brilliant Samorost 1, Samorost 2, and Machinarium, you're probably asking how can Czech game studio Amanita Design possibly top all that?  What's next?

Carefree or Spooky?  Scene from Osada

Well, Samorost 3 is still in the works (no screenshots yet though), plus two more titles: Botanicula (about critters with a mission to protect the last surviving seed in their planet--more on that later)  and Osada.

Osada is a web-based point-and-click interactive music video but without Machinarium's migraine-inducing puzzles.

The scenarios for each music video are reminiscent of Samorost: surreal and bizarre landscapes, peopled by bugs and howling dogs and oddball figures, in a hodgepodge mosaic of photos and drawings and animations. Think of the wickedly quirky music videos you'd expect to see from Mark Romanek.

The point of the "game" seems to be that you just have to listen to the music being dished out as you click your way through the screen.  Musical instruments employed in Osada include a banjo, keyboards, electric guitar, tube, sax, harmonica, Jew's harp, violin, clarinet, even the didgeridoo--an Australian wind instrument invented by the aborigines.   You can't get any more eclectic than that.

Scene from Botanicula

Osada features what Jakub Dvorsky, calls "Czech psychedelic country music"--richly multi-layered tracks always busy and festive, and the best part is you're the boss.  

One thing though, the music tends to be too short to be played comfortably and tolerably on loop (unlike the soundtracks of Samorost 1 and 2).  Get stuck in one music video, for instance, and the music will start to feel like annoying cacophony instead.

Incidentally, Tomas Dvorak--the man behind Samorost's hypnotic soundtrack--is absent from the list of musicians for Osada.

So you're clicking things on screen to activate the music.  But to what end?

See for yourself and enjoy.

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Osada is now playable at http://amanita-design.net