M E C H A N I S M

Quite a few games have managed to impress the gamers over the decades, even if the said games were not developed by huge triple-A studios. Hence, all it takes is a handful of neat ideas and a decent execution, because it’s important for the game to run as intended in order to be enjoyable. Thanks to modern engines like Unity, game development is accessible to everyone nowadays, which means that we have more games than ever.

Mechanism is a puzzle game with a third-person perspective and a robot in the main role, and your goal is to solve puzzles, use stealth to avoid enemy contact and explore an interesting world. The game features a pretty interesting take on the whole stealth concept, especially since you play as a clunky robot with no real cloaking mechanics, so it’s all about imagination and patience.

To begin with, your robot has the ability to pick up one object with each arm, and you can carry them around in order to make use of those objects. You can drop these objects if you pick them up by mistake, but they all have their purpose sooner or later. Platforming is also a fairly important aspect of level exploration, because there are sections that require precise jumping in order to be passed.

As for the puzzles themselves, they can be tough to figure out sometimes, especially if you are new to the genre. The game lacks instructions of any kind in this regard, so although the controls are explained in the beginning, you rarely know what you should be doing to advance the story. However, this is part of the game’s charm, because you feel much more rewarded when you figure out the answers.

In terms of graphics, the game is actually decent-looking, even if the developers have made too much use of the depth-of-field effect sometimes. Most of the environment is blurred if you move the camera to a certain angle, which is not great when you have to deal with platforming sections. Thankfully, at least the level design is nice, and so are the textures that decorate the world.

Even if it has its flaws, Mechanism is still a pretty impressive puzzle game, especially when you factor in the stealth mechanics and the platforming. Hence, it’s worth a shot if you are up for a challenge and a few brain teasers.