The Wonderful World of Amanita Design

If quirky titles like Limbo turn you on, you’re going to want to get to know Amanita Design, a tiny developer from the Czech Republic. They make the kind of games that Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam or Roald Dahl would play: point-and-click surrealist adventures.

In 2009, after a series of small, free-to-play-online titles, Amanita captured attention with its first full-length game, a steampunkish adventure called Machinarium that was released for PC and Mac (hot tip: Machinarium is available at half price on the Mac App Store until the end of March). The game got rave reviews from all the major gaming journos, and now, two years after the accolades, Amanita has updated the world on what it’s got in the pipeline next.

Firstly, Machinarium is coming to the PlayStation Network sometime this year, and very likely, the iPad as well. Amanita is even considering releasing it to the Blackberry tablet, the Playbook.

The studio’s next title will be another online freebie called Osada, which is described as an “interactive music video.” It should be available at Amanita’s website soon. Then, they’ll turn their attention to a point-and-click game called Botanicula, which follows five tree creatures who try to save their treehouse from evil parasites. The screenshots show off a beautiful, ethereal world like nothing I’ve ever seen. The third and final new title the studio announced is Samorost 3, about a space gnome living on an asteroid who has to solve unique puzzles. The first Samorost was the studio’s debut title, a free-to-play Flash game (play it here) that studio founder Jakub Dvorský crafted as his graduate thesis project.