The Machine powering up for Game Boy family handhelds

Written by Jack Allin — February 26, 2022 at 10:47

As the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Don't believe it? Well, just look at the recent resurgence in popularity of new releases for the Game Boy as proof. The next in a growing line of new games exclusively for Nintendo's handheld devices is Ben Jelter's choice-driven narrative adventure, The Machine.

The game is named after the setting in which all the action takes place, a "gigantic machine" in which the citizens are "in the throes of an election." In this "original dystopian world," society is highly hierarchical, as everyone's role is "determined at a young age through an aptitude test." Players control a young peanut-looking creature named Girt, who doesn't study and arrives late to this important test. Not to worry even if you flunk, however, as you'll be offered other opportunities to become "a factory worker, a police officer, a secret agent, a hippie," and more, giving you the chance to "pursue numerous different storyline paths." 

Designed exclusively for the original Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance devices, The Machine has an appropriately retro aesthetic, presented via a top-down perspective with rudimentary pixel art and a limited palette. Over the course of a projected twenty-plus hours of gameplay, players must guide young Girt through the machine's "inner workings" in nonlinear fashion, getting to know its many other inhabitants and making a variety of choices that "could dramatically impact the future" and result in one of over twenty-five endings, some of them far from good. 

With the game due to launch sometime next month, pre-orders for The Machine (including a sealed box, grey cartridge, clear cartridge protector, instruction booklet and limited-time sticker sheet) are now being accepted on the official website, where a browser-based demo is available to try ahead of time.