SAMOROST 3 PC GAMEPLAY SERIES

In fact, “simple” seems to be one of the driving philosophies behind Samorost 3 ’s design. This humble introduction equates the gnome’s wanderlust with the player’s own inquisitiveness, and, consequently, embraces one of the fundamental pleasures of videogames: simple exploration. Without exposition or dialogue, the player understands that mere curiosity sets the gnome on his quest for other worlds, and only by helping him build his rocket ship (from a living mushroom, a rusted panel, a bathtub, and plastic bottle) can he set off to explore the stars. The game begins simply enough with the gnome wandering around his own planetoid, his house a tower with a telescope through which he can gaze up at other planets and their orbiting satellites. The world of Samorost 3 is, quite plainly, unlike any other I’ve encountered

The world of Samorost 3 is, quite plainly, unlike any other I’ve encountered. Such a style finds a delightful playfulness by blending found object art, like the “ready-mades” of Marcel Duchamp, with the surrealist landscapes and creatures of Max Ernst. Samorost 3, however, returns to the previous art design of blending the natural and technological worlds to construct fascinating environments hewn from broken stones and overgrown forests commixed with discarded bits of trash and rusted metal. A blend of manipulated photography and hand-drawn environments play host to bizarre and charming characters, all moving to the tunes of equally imaginative soundscapes.Īmanita’s most recent titles, Machinarium (2009) and Botanicula (2012), split this aesthetic blend of found object and organic material by designing worlds solely out of junkyard scrap for the former, and an enormous tree for the latter. In a 2005 interview, Dvorsky stated that the title “samorost” is a Czech word that means “a root or piece of wood which resembles a creature but it is also a term for a person who doesn’t care about the rest of the world.” Appropriately, both Samorost (2003) and Samorost 2 (2005) follow the adventures of a space-faring gnome as he travels to worlds of overgrown wood and rusted metal.

SAMOROST 3 PC GAMEPLAY SERIES

Even the title of the Samorost series points to Dvorsky’s curiosity with the peculiar shapes of the natural world. The most ambitious project yet from Jakub Dvorsky and the team at Amanita Design (which gets its name from a genus of mushrooms known for toxic and hallucinogenic properties), Samorost 3 bears the markings of a creative mind fascinated with unlocking the art behind man-made and natural throwaways.

The various planetoids that drift through the game’s version of outer space have the asymmetrical appearance of organic junk, decaying stumps and moss-claimed stones infused with extraordinary life to unlock their inherent aesthetic potential. I hadn’t thought of that bit of ornamental flotsam for years, but it suddenly appeared in my mind when I began playing Samorost 3. I remember turning it over in my hands as a child, curious as to why anyone would place an oddly-shaped piece of wood on a table as a decorative object. From another angle, it appears as some bizarre sailing vessel, and from another still, it has the look of an alien weapon-perhaps a hybrid of a gun and a club. In a cabin near Walker’s Lake, in Mississippi, there’s a piece of driftwood that looks almost like a wolf’s head.

Samorost 3 pc gameplay