Samorost 2

Lore & Background

The game begins when aliens land at Gnome's house and steal his pears. They are interrupted by Gnome's dog, so the aliens kidnap him. Gnome spots the aliens leaving with his dog, and chases them with his Polokonzerva rocket ship. He lands on the alien's planet and infiltrates their underground base, finding his dog held by the aliens' leader to help power a cooling fan. Gnome saves the dog and they escape, but their rocket ship runs out of fuel and crashes on another planet. They travel around the planet, find an air taxi driver, and convince him to take them home. The driver celebrates with Gnome and his dog at a bonfire before departing; the dog curls up in front of his dog house while Gnome relaxes under his fruit trees and falls asleep.

Gameplay is similar to the previous game: the player interacts with the world via a simple point-and-click interface, directing a small, white-clad humanoid with a little cap and brown boots (called simply 'gnome' by Dvorsky). The goal is to solve a series of sequentially linked puzzles and brain teasers forming an adventure story. The game contains no inventory or dialogue; solving puzzles consists mainly of clicking on-screen elements in the correct order, and solving a puzzle immediately transports the player character to the next screen. The game features surrealistic, organic scenarios mixing natural and technological concepts, often using manipulated photographs of small objects made to look very large, along with creative character designs and a unique musical atmosphere.

Reader's Guide

Samorost 2 is significant as the sequel to the original Samorost, expanding the gnome's adventure into a longer quest to save his kidnapped dog. Developed by Amanita Design, the game was initially released digitally on 8 December 2005, with a physical international release on 5 June 2006 and a Russian Collector's Edition on 21 November 2008. The first chapter (first 4 levels) was made available online for free, while the second chapter (3 levels) required purchase of the full version, originally priced at $6.90 and later lowered to $5.00. The game received generally positive critical reviews, praised for its visuals and simple gameplay. It won several awards, including a 2007 Webby in the games category, the Independent Games Festival award in 2007 for Best Web Browser Game, and the Best Web-Work Award at the Seoul Net Festival in 2006. The soundtrack, composed by Tomáš Dvořák, won the Original Sound category at the Flashforward Film Festival 2006. In 2011, Adventure Gamers named Samorost 2 the 54th-best adventure game ever released. The game was also featured in the Humble Indie Bundle from 4–11 May 2010 (extended to 15 May), raising $1,273,613, with 30.90% allocated to charity. A sequel, Samorost 3, was released in 2016 on multiple platforms.