Animating clay puppets is a modern day trick that goes way back. I remember watching Morph (remember him?) and being fascinated by the brilliant Wallace and Gromit back when I was a little nipper. Armikrog is like those in terms of aesthetic and visual style. Considered a spiritual successor to cult classic The Neverhood, Armikrog adopts the same clay-mation technique to great results.
First impressions are everything. That opening sequence sets the tone of what’s to come. At least in most forms of media be it films, music, and video games. I open with this because Armikrog has one of the weirdest yet wonderful opening sequences I’ve seen in a while. A combination of light-hearted, clay-mation visuals mixed with a brilliantly funny theme song really pulled me in. The first of Armikrog’s cutscenes which are far and few between and crop up every now and again. It’s during these we hear the voices of our protagonist.
You play as Tommynaut with his four legged companion, Beak-Beak, who ends up locked inside a fortress called Armikrog after crash landing on the planet Spiro 5. Together, they must solve all of the many puzzles to escape. Sadly, dialogue is a big missed opportunity. There hardly is any during the gameplay sections with Tommynaut only speaking more than a few words during cutscenes. It has potential to be a hilarious space romp with a couple of likeable characters, but I couldn’t help but feel…well, off. What I mean is the sense of absence from the characters. There was nothing to make me relate to or care for them, this could have easily been improved with a little more speech or banter.
Armikrog is a traditional point and click adventure. You use an on screen cursor to instruct either Tommynaut or Beak-Beak to do your bidding. There is little guidance. It took me a while to figure out I could control either character individually rather than together all the time indicated only by the cursor changing from blue to pink. There is no prompt audibly or visually, no heads up display, nothing on screen to help you. Getting stuck is never far away here. Circulating around the same few rooms trying to find that one thing needed to break out of a seemingly endless cycle is a frequent occurrence, unfortunately. Maybe a hint system would have helped? Who knows?
This lack of hand holding makes figuring out the many memory themed puzzles contained in Armikrog difficult. Maybe it’s meant to be. A subliminal hint at encouraging exploration which I can only describe as cursor scanning also known as the art of directing the cursor left and right looking for interaction spots. Armikrog is full of dull puzzles but some do stand out. A highlight is figuring out the correct toy sequence on a baby’s cradle toy to stop a baby from crying.
Beak-Beak, your dog-like compadre, can go where Tommynaut can’t, but due to him being colour-blind, he only sees things in a negative colour scheme which is trippy on the eyes. Other than these sections and using him to stand on switches, he hasn’t much use, another missed opportunity.
Armikrog is very nice to look at. Its use of a mixture of dull and bold coloured clay to create this unique world and the characters that inhabit it is an enlightening change for video games, even if it’s a little simplistic. Tommynaut’s face consists of two black eyes and a mouth. It’s the animation during the cutscenes that give him personality, but as I mentioned before, they are far and few between. Armikrog has many wildly designed rooms, but most of your time will be spent stuck in the same few. It’s a good job they look good.
Developer: Pencil Test Studios
Publisher: Versus Evil
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Wii-U
Release Date: 23rd August 2016