The Music Machine
A teenage girl and the vengeful ghost possessing her stumble onto horrors of cosmic proportions as the latter searches for a way to murder the former.
The Music Machine is a adventure, indie and horror game
developed and published by David Szymanski.
Released on May 06th 2015 is available in English only on Windows.
It has received 521 reviews of which 463 were positive and 58 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.3 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 2.49€ on Steam and has a 50% discount.
The Steam community has classified The Music Machine into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows XP or Higher
- Processor: Intel i3 or equivalent
- Memory: 1 GB RAM
- Graphics: AMD Radeon 6870 or equivalent
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 600 MB available space
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
I adored this. It's such a strange and beautiful little creation, and despite coming nearly a decade ago it hasn't aged a day. I'd still be impressed with it both visually and narratively if it came out yesterday. I haven't played the other games that are related to this story (Fingerbones and The Moon Sliver) but I don't think it hurt my enjoyment, although I'm now curious to see what they add. It's absolutely an acquired taste kind of game, a boldly artistic and empty walking sim with minimal puzzling and a story that is hinted at rather than fully explained, but it's an excellent example of that niche. It begins as a haunting and intimate game of two doomed outcasts exploring the ruined island home of a third lonesome figure but by the end the scope is massive, bordering on speculative science fiction, while maintaining the character's relationship as the axis around which everything turns. The dialogue is well-written and hints at a traumatic past that's being talked around rather than actually shown, and the relationship between the young girl and the ghost inside her is at turns tender and hostile. Visually and aurally this thing is just incredible too - just look at those screenshots! Szymanski really has a talent for the weird - I've played Squirrel Stapler previous to this and although it's completely different in nearly every way it's also absolutely the same, building a strange world outwards from a dark central premise to create a short but powerfully focused and unique experience. Squirrel Stapler is perhaps more of a "game" mechanically than this is, but I think this in many ways surpasses that game as a statement of intent for Szymanski's oeuvre. A masterpiece of gorgeous minimalism. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45281933/]my steam curator page
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A great experience by David Szymanski! I'd recommend playing this once, as it took ~1 1/2h to complete just exploring everywhere and enjoying the dialogue. Well worth the experience
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I liked this one a good bit. A neat short story with some cool exploration. I really like how he did the art for this one. Very freaky.
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REVIEW #105 The Music Machine ---------- David Szymanski has a knack for creating very interesting stories and characters with a viewpoint that may different from that of the average person, and in my opinion, The Music Machine is one of the best examples of this that I've come across. TMM is a uniquely-styled, story-driven adventure title that plays out more like an experience in exploration than a game. Yes, I'm saying that it's a walking simulator... but it's a really good one. It's also a short game that will take about 1 to 2 hours of the player's time from start to finish, so it easily avoids overstaying its welcome and yet doesn't feel too brief. The Music Machine's strongest points are its story and style. Its tale and the surrounding characters are all interesting and unique, and I enjoyed learning everything that I could through dialog and reading notes found around the environments. Speaking of the game's locations, all of the locales are very odd and fascinating to explore, almost making me feel like I was experiencing someone's dreams at points. It's worth mentioning that TMM's story ties into other games created by the developer, including The Moon Sliver. However, while it may be necessary to play or read about those other titles to fully understand the tale offered here, I didn't find doing that necessary to essentially understand what was happening exclusively in the immediate world of this game. The Music Machine's graphics are rendered monochromatically with low-resolution (yet high-quality) textures, and every area uses a different base color, helping to give each world its own distinct feel while exploring. Personally, I enjoy the game's graphical style as it seems to give its environments a surreal and dream-like quality. The sound production is also very well done, leaning more on environmental ambient sounds than music. However, what music and injected background ambiances that are here are really good and are appropriately engaging without feel overwhelming or too skeletal in their integration into the overall experience. TMM isn't perfect, of course, and it may not be for everyone. Other players have voiced that the story was either uninteresting or hard to understand, and while my opinion doesn't align with that, it is a complaint that I've seen occur fairly often, and I did personally feel that some parts of the story felt underdeveloped or "tacked on". Outside of that aspect of the game, other issues that I feel are worth mentioning include that it sometimes feels a little vague regarding how to advance. I found myself wandering around on one or two occasions in an attempt to figure out what I needed to do next, although I acknowledge that I never found myself needing to check a guide. In my wanderings, however, I did find that the monochromatic visual style did make it hard to optically determine what steeper inclines in the landscape I could or couldn't simply walk up without coming to a dead stop and having to find another way around. Also, some of the shadowing can look a little glitchy and unnatural in a small handful of areas, especially where tree branches are being moved by wind. Still, I feel that The Music Machine is worth picking up if you're in the mood for exploring interesting and bizarre worlds all tied together by a unique story. $5 USD (which is the current price) may be a little steep for some players, especially considering that it is a pretty short game, and I suggest that those players wait until it goes on sale as I did. Regardless, I can confidently say that I'm quite happy with my purchase and to have this title in my Steam library. I've thoroughly enjoyed multiple play-throughs of TMM, and I confidently predict that I'll be coming back for another one in the near future.
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Another short horror exploration game improving on David Szymanski's previous titles Fingerbones and The Moon Sliver. Solid minimalist sound and visuals are to be expected at this point, though The Music Machine opts for a more unique and striking monochromatic style which works really well. It's unsettling and creepy without cheap scares, has dialog and a real-time story that flow well, and optional exploration and organic decisions that affect the game's ending. My only mechanical complaint is that the "hold M1 to examine, release to interact" system is silly - there's no reason I wouldn't want to examine something, so it just means I have to spend the whole game running around with M1 held down. I'm not 100% a fan of the lore expansion, as it undermines some of the mystery and potential metaphorical interpretations of The Moon Sliver, but that's purely subjective. The story is the weird part for me: Haley (13f) hangs out with Quintin (34m) because they're both lonely outcasts. She makes an advance, he shuts her down hard, she is hurt and lies to her father saying she was molested, dad kills Quintin, Quintin's ghost possesses her seeking revenge. Based on the player's choices he either finds a horrific way of doing so, or when faced with the reality of his revenge realizes he's not willing to go through with it. Based on both of their dialog, Quintin was entirely in the right and Haley was being childish, got him *killed*, and didn't seem too sorry about it until her own life was in jeopardy. I'm not really sure what the point of their weird "relationship" was. The best interpretation I can come up with is that in contrast to the Spindle Men's horrifically logical, literal, and utilitarian view of the universe, human interaction is illogical, messy, and emotional. Their lives and relationship (romantic or not) were messy before death, messy after, and even though Quintin is apparently completely justified in killing Haley, maybe he won't, even if he doesn't forgive her. If nothing else, it made me think for a bit. 100% worth the $ and time spent.
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 23 November 2024 06:09 |
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| SteamSpy data | 19 December 2024 15:01 |
| Steam price | 23 December 2024 20:47 |
| Steam reviews | 23 December 2024 08:05 |
Online players
1
Developer
David Szymanski
Publisher
David Szymanski
Release
06 May 2015
Platforms