Game Review: Samorost 3 Demo

I first found out about Samorost 3 during my research for my university game project. At the time it was still in production but later on, it popped up on my recommended in the play store. What attracted me most was the amazing art. I've never heard of Samorost nor have I played previous versions of this game, but the story was easy enough to follow.

Samorost 3 is considered a 2D platform game but the style of it is almost 3D as shown in the banner above. It's a beautiful surreal game which takes you in a journey in the large planet you're in. The full version has multiple planets but the demo I played only allows you to explore this very earth-like planet. In a way it's an adventure/puzzle/sound simulator game, as each section has one major interaction which either it creates music or you do with the small trumpet. The goal of the game is to collect materials to venture into outer space to other planets.

The graphics is absolutely stunning - unlike many games that exist. The realistic background make's the characters stand out a lot as they are 2D and flat shaded. This art style was what I originally aspired to achieve for my game - surreal, textured and detailed but it proved to be too complicated. The art paired with the soft and almost eerie music made it really dreamlike and easily lost in - in a good way of course.

At first the controls we're quite confusing, as there were no controls on the screen so I assumed it was the tap and move control but that didn't work either. Turns out you have to tap a certain area/object in the game for the character to move. There is no real order to what item you pick up first as it all combines to become a space ship in the end. The puzzles we're definitely entertaining, some I've never encountered in any puzzle games before. The most interesting puzzle in my opinion was the ordering of images in the little case shown below:

This is where the player had to create different combinations of the images until all of them became blank. It is difficult to explain but you get the gist of it. All the puzzles have no explanation or instruction and multiple times throughout the game I didn't know what to do, where to go, or what to press which was in a way a small downside due to the lack of clarity. However, eventually you figure out, or will look up tutorials online like me.

There were no glitches or lags despite being such a big game file, which made the experience a lot better. There was no point system, so this made the game more adventurous and more narrative driven with a story book feel than an actual game - some of us may like that factor - stress free with no fighting involved, similar to games like Firewatch. Others may prefer more active and control with the game since right now, you don't control what's going on, only where you move.

I don't think there is a save point as there is no continue or loading button at the start screen. I played it all in one go so I'm not entirely certain about this factor, but if someone finds out please correct me.

Over all this is a beautiful dreamlike game suitable for all ages, possibly people over 12 years due to the complexity of some puzzles. It's definitely worth a try as it isn't a long game, it took me around 1 hour 30 mins max.