Nobody makes games quite like Amanita Design, the scrappy Czech indie studio responsible for beautiful, meticulously-crafted adventure games like Machinarium, Botanicula, and Creaks, and now they're about to launch possibly their most ambitious project to date. Phonopolis, which spent over a decade in development, sports a unique cardboard diorama look, with the folks at Amanita creating real-life cardboard props that were then scanned into the game (this is also Amanita's first 3D title).

Is Amanita Design's latest still a cut above? Or is Phonopolis not worth the cardboard it's printed on? Adventure onward to find out.

Phonopolis takes place in a dystopian totalitarian society in which the populace is controlled by omnipresent loudspeakers, which promise the Dear Leader will soon broadcast the Absolute Tone, a sound so perfect it will wipe the last remnants of free will from citizens’ minds. Players take on the role of Felix, a garbage man literally tasked with collecting the art and cultural relics from the "Old Times" and feeding them into a shredder. Ah, but Felix stumbles upon some ruins and discovers a particularly important and useful artifact: a pair of headphones. Now able to block out commands from the loudspeakers, Felix sees society for what it truly is, and soon finds himself wrapped up in a plot to stop the Absolute Tone and find a beautiful singer named Ráchel who is somehow mixed up in all of this.

If you're at least moderately culturally literate, you've likely experienced quite a few stories of this type. Critiques of this kind of Orwellian society have been around since, well, Orwell was writing. That said, the world of Phonopolis is a carefully crafted one, with plenty of sharp little gags, like the fact that the city literally has a "Department of Request Denials." If you like stuff like the movie Brazil—dystopian fiction with a bit of a quirky edge—then you'll enjoy this.

Ultimately, though, what really draws you into the world of Phonopolis is its presentation. The game is gorgeous, like an interactive version of one of those European animated shorts you only catch a glimpse of during the Oscars. The whole cardboard world conceit works well, bringing new depth to what Amanita does, but what actually stood out to me even more was how the game's characters are handled. Felix and all the game's NPCs are hand-animated and bursting with life and personality. The game's unique look draws on various early-20th-century modern art styles, like constructivism and suprematism, which were heavily used in early Soviet propaganda, giving the game's visuals some thematic and historical heft as well.

Phonopolis' presentation is further elevated by a typically excellent Amanita soundtrack, which makes the puzzle-solving process surprisingly invigorating. One aspect that may divide some longtime Amanita fans is the addition of voice acting, primarily in the form of ongoing narration by Felix, though a few other characters also speak. You could argue the narration robs the game of that enigmatic, mysterious feeling most past Amanita games have had, but there's no denying the dialogue is very well delivered by Amanita collaborator Joe Acheson (he did the soundtrack for Creaks), so I didn't really have any issue with its inclusion.

Like the majority of Amanita Design titles, Phonopolis is a fairly straightforward point 'n' click adventure. You click to direct Felix where to go, and important objects typically have little nodes attached to them that you can click, push, pull, rotate, etc. While you will occasionally pick up a single item to progress the story, this is not one of those old-school adventure games where you spend half your time testing your ever-growing inventory of random doodads on every puzzle. You can also click on all the loudspeakers in the game to see how the citizens of Phonopolis will react, although this is mostly just for fun.

If you've played a point 'n' click adventure game before, particularly if you've played an Amanita Design one, you'll largely know what to expect here. Some of the game's puzzles, like one where you have to manipulate the controls of a vehicle to cause it to crash or another where you have to navigate a series of maze-like bureaucratic hallways, have a certain easily-recognizable logic to them. Other puzzles feel like you're pretty much just clicking at random to find the exact right sequence of actions the developers were looking for.

Of course, bizarre "adventure game logic" is a long-held tradition, but I felt that Creaks represented a step forward for Amanita, as they gave you direct control of your avatar and built puzzles around predictable, observable mechanics. To some degree, Phonopolis feels like a step backward in puzzle design.

Don't get me wrong, though, there are still plenty of satisfying puzzles to be found here, and if you're a point 'n' click vet, you won't find anything too maddening. Also, one thing Phonopolis has that Creaks doesn't is an adaptive hint system that will drop the occasional pointer if you're stuck in an area for too long (you can turn this option off if you don't want the help), so nobody's going to get too hopelessly stymied.

Phonopolis is a quick experience, clocking in at around 5 or 6 hours, and unlike some other Amanita games, there aren't really any extra collectibles to go back for. But, like a good tune, I imagine some folks will want to revisit the game purely for the pleasure of it.

This review was based on a PC copy of Phonopolis provided by publisher Amanita Design.

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Phonopolis is the most beautiful and artfully-constructed game yet from Amanita Design, a studio that knows a thing or two about making such games. Phonopolis perhaps doesn't venture quite as far outside the point 'n' click adventure box as it could, but fans of the genre who don't mind the occasional obtuse puzzle and a short-ish runtime will likely find themselves singing the game's praises.

Pros

• Gorgeous stylized visuals
• Rich dystopian worldbuilding
• Most puzzles are quite satisfying
• Soundtrack strikes the right tone
• On-point voice acting

Cons

• A few puzzles are a bit random
• This tune doesn't last long

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