Shy Dwarf

Shy Dwarf (Plachý trpaslík in Czech) is a small piece by Jaromír Plachý that came out a few months before Machinarium and is easy to overlook — which is a shame, because it shows a different side of the studio than the one people know Amanita for.

You play a dwarf who's shy. That's not just a character description, it's the game mechanic: whenever someone looks at him, he freezes and can't move. Moving forward means keeping track of who's looking where, and slipping through the environment in the moments when nobody's watching. A simple idea turns into a platformer that plays more like a timing puzzle.

It's short, it's played in the browser, and visually it leans closer to caricature than to the organic collages of Samorost. Plachý carried this sense of humor forward, and nine years later it grew into Chuchel, so Shy Dwarf can also be read as the first hint of where the author was headed.

Why play it: An idea that would be enough for a whole indie game today is handled here in ten minutes — and you can see where the humor of the later Chuchel came from.