From the maker of the Samorost series comes Machinarium. Via BB he’s expanding into film.

The Machinarium demo can be played through in about fifteen minutes, depending on how strong your adventure-game-foo is. Design innovations include a decision to defeat the “just mouse over everything” hack under which most Flash adventures suffer by introducing Grim Fandango-esque arcade-style locomotion.

The puzzles also have an internal dream-world logic that actually makes sense, avoiding the worst design excesses of Sierra. One gets the feeling that there are no unwinnable game states, and that each puzzle is correctly caged.

The visual design also makes use of objects that look almost manipulable to increase the challenge of finding ones which actually are, but manages the trick that once you’ve figured out the aesthetic the dynamic fades into the background, just leaving the art pleasantly, but not cloyingly, active.

The art, atmosphere, and exposition are airy, dark, and fantastic — and the business model is great: give some fun for free, whet the user’s appetite for great design, and then hit them up for the download-sale.