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Samorost 3 (PC, Mac)

AMANITA DESIGN

Music, nature, and animation come together as one in Samorost 3. Yes, perhaps more so than in many other videogames. Your cursor doesn’t just point-and-click, it ruffles bushes, causes alarm to sleeping birds, and picks mushrooms. It’s your entry into a tangible universe, split across several planets and moons, all of it woven together by photographs, wood sounds, and hand-animated dream sequences. Your direct task is to help a space gnome return a flute that dropped from the sky to its origin. But, implicitly, your task is to explore the knots and hidey-holes of this bug-infested fairy tale. You conduct singing lizards, operate organ-like watering machines, and fight a three-headed mechanical creature of legend. With Samorost 3, a game made in the Czech Republic, we see the continuation of the “tactile art” of animation greats like Jan Švankmajer and Hermína Týrlová. It’s an adventure game of cultural importance not to be missed.

Perfect for: Nature lovers, John Muir, foragers

Playtime: Four hours