Creaks

Creaks sends the player into an underground world full of grotesque machines and overgrown shadow creatures, through which they must guide a silent hero so that none of the creatures spot him in a lit spot. Amanita Design here abandons the classic point-and-click adventure for the first time in favor of a logic platformer, where instead of combining items the player figures out how to arrange levers, ladders, and lights so as to get through a room without waking the danger hidden in the dark.

The touchscreen controls are reduced to virtual direction buttons and a single action button, so despite the genre shift toward a jumping puzzle game, the gameplay on mobile remains surprisingly precise and readable. The visual style, with dark, oil-painting-like backdrops and an unusually spooky yet still fairy-tale-like atmosphere, continues the studio's artistic tradition while pushing it into darker, more dreamlike territory.

Creaks was first released as an exclusive title for Apple Arcade, Apple's subscription service, which meant players outside that subscription had to wait for a later release on other platforms; at the time of its mobile release, the payment model was therefore tied to the Apple Arcade subscription rather than a one-time purchase. Despite its darker atmosphere, the game remains non-violent - the hero doesn't die when spotted, he's just pushed back a bit, so puzzles can be tried repeatedly without fear of restarting the whole chapter.

Why play: Recommended for fans of Machinarium who will appreciate the shift toward an atmospheric logic platformer, but they should expect that the game was available mainly through the Apple Arcade subscription.