Creaks

Creaks renovates a well-worn genre, delivering one of the most satisfying indie puzzle-platformers in some time. Between its stunning visual and audio design, absorbing world, and perfectly-balanced puzzles, it’s hard to find serious fault with any part of this game’s construction. If you’re a fan of puzzles or Amanita Design’s past games, you need to grab a flashlight and delve in.

Creaks is the new addition to Amanita Design’s catalogue, with wonderful visual design and puzzle challenges that will please fans of the genre.

Creaks has beauty, creativity and invention to spare, but don’t let its flighty facade fool you: there’s challenge aplenty here too.

Amanita Design has moved away from their usual adventure style to build one awesome puzzle-platformer. Thanks to a near perfect learning curve, painted detours, and a stunning visual and musical package, Creaks is a must for fans of the studio and puzzle aficionados alike.

Quotation forthcoming.

Amanita once again shows its strength, even when trying out a new genre. If you like to think hard and admire beautiful graphics, this is a game for you.

The breathtaking art (inspired by Czech shadow puppet theatre) and the wonderful experimental music from Hidden Orchestra create a hauntingly weird and enticing underground world that you will want to explore, even if you have to go through some repetition, padding and filler during your journey.

Creaks is the new puzzle game from Amanita Design, creators of Machinarium. Creaks is a beautiful trip to the deepest of our world filled with monsters scared of the light. It is not as good as Machinarium but is awesome anyway.

It would have been wonderful to see this team’s giant imagination expressed through the subversion of, rather than adherence to, well-worn puzzle platform conventions, but perhaps that is just plain greedy. It is, after all, such a treat to find a gorgeous narrative game that owes nothing to the culturally prevalent aesthetics of Disney, Marvel or Studio Ghibli. While the puzzle construction at the heart of Creaks is formulaic, that should not be a disincentive to give this short, singular experience a try. No time with an Amanita Design game is ever wasted.

Creaks is extremely unique and different from the usual games crafted by the talented Amanita Design team. Still it is again the quintessence of an incredible work of visual and audio art intertwined in order to create a striking and funny puzzle game. An indie must buy like the previous Samorost, Machinarium and Botanicula.

Those small flaws don't detract from what is a great little puzzle game, though. Amanita basically has a perfect track record when it comes to its different releases and Creaks does not break that trend. It certainly is something new for the studio that longtime fans may not immediately gel with, but those that have a love of the weird and creepy will find a lot to admire in Creaks.

Creaks may be a break from point-and-click tradition for Amanita, but we're left with a familiar smile as the credits roll, our eyes still wide with delight. [Issue#348, p.102]

Visually striking and mentally satisfying, Creaks is a puzzle platformer that fully embraces its oddball nature. Some control and pacing niggles aside, it’s a bright new genre entry, sure to have extra appeal for people with darker, cerebral tastes in entertainment.

Creaks is a great game if you like puzzles. It’s beautiful and challenging, although it ends up feeling a little bit repetitive, with some puzzle designs that feel too similar to each other.

You can clearly see that Amanita Design spend way more resources and time on Creaks, but the move from classic point-n-click gameplay was not very smooth. The game is massive and is undoubtedly gorgeous, but sometimes it feels like it's drags on for way too long and the gameplay becomes quite repetitive. The feeling of true excitement that you get for solving a head scratching puzzle is also nowhere to be seen. But all of that means very little when you take Creaks for what it is, especially if you look at it with a fresh pair of eyes.

The mysterious atmosphere that Amanita Design is known for is present in Creaks, but it never reaches the heights of the developer’s previous works. In particular, the puzzle gameplay feels old and pulls the player out of the experience. The only part where it feels like Amanita Design reaches its true potential is not the main game, but the collectable paintings.