Hamlet

Hamlet, contrary to what one may suppose, uses Shakespeare not in the same way as Fatale used Wilde, or even American McGee’s Alice used Carroll. Quite differently, it simply borrows characters and situations from the Bard’s utter classic. Thus, while feeling a bit like a “story skin” on top of what is very essentially a puzzle game, it makes it all the more accessible, and is quite light entertainment.
This one seems a no-brainer for AmanitaDesign (Machinarium, Samorost) fans: it’s a pure puzzler with a slick character and environment design. However, unlike Amanita’s games, it suffers from having perhaps less talented authors. The characters are endearing, taking us back to cartoons from the golden age of animation. The mouse pointer is (I suppose) an hommage to Neverhood’s very own, which was quite a nice, and deserved, surprise. The puzzles however aren’t as inventive. There’s no item menu, so every puzzle is solved within the same screen. They’re also very familiar, from the folkish style ones that are present in Prof. Layton games, to adventure games’ staples. All in all, you won’t see anything new that will make you think differently.
The music department is also a far cry from Machinarium’s superb compositions, although it plays its part.
Bottom line, this game has a lot of visual style that should appeal during the hour or so that it takes to be beat. Other aspects however show that this game is very much an independent and singular effort, that just doesn’t have as much polish as the token oeuvres of the genre. However, it is worth the single play, and I’ll be very much looking forward to improvement in Romeo & Juliet, the next game in the series.
Hamlet demo