I’ve been dragging my heels on this one, I have to admit. Mother Machine is all about the emergent multiplayer gameplay, and so I’ve been trying to sort out various configurations of players to facilitate different types of scenarios. Now, after some solo play, an evening of online co-op with friends, and most recently, some time with my son trying local multiplayer, I think I’ve seen enough to share my thoughts.
What is Mother Machine?
Mother Machine is a newly released multiplayer platformer from the good folks over at Maschinen-Mensch, the Berlin-based studio that first came to my attention with the highly playable Curious Expedition back in 2016. This is the team’s latest outing, and while it’s quirky, fresh and full of flavour, it’s not without its problems either.
To be fair to Maschinen-Mensch, the game isn’t billed as a roguelite, however, I’m looking at it because the game has a strong roguish element and an emphasis on procedural generation. In fact, the developer claims that its “groundbreaking procedural generation sets a new standard”. (A bold claim that we’ll dig into later.)
Co-op is at the core of Mother Machine. The game supports 1-4 players, and as you can imagine, more players results in more chaos. And chaos is very much the order of the day here, as each player is in control of a cute gremlin-looking monster with strange mutant powers who frolicks around weird and often dangerous caves.
Who is Mother Machine?
Rather than asking what, I think the more relevant question in this instance is: who is Mother Machine? That’s because the answer to this sits at the heart of the game. You see, the eponymous Mother is a machine, as you might expect from the title, but she is so much more. This sentient metallic mommy lives on a long-abandoned planet, and she has worked out how to 3D print little gremlin-like creatures to help her achieve her goals.
While there is a short campaign that delves into the backstory and unlocks as you progress, the main focus here is re-running different mission types with your buddies, mostly for resources so you can customise your critter with new bodily features, colour schemes, and other trimmings. It’s a hang-out game, if you will, where the point is to piss around with your buddies, rather than do something grander and more story-driven.
And so, either alone or with friends, you must embark on missions through exotic procedurally-generated cave systems. There are actually two different types although the second (Misty Grove, see the screenshot below) is locked behind a DLC paywall. I thought it was a strange decision given the scope of the game and the way it was presented, however, the developer does at least adopt a similar setup to that of Risk of Rain 2, whereby if one player has the content, all can play. Likewise, any new mutations you unlock during your time in Misty Grove will persist and be there the next time you visit, even if you don’t own it.
Whether you’re playing around in the DLC or the original Ashen Spores environment, once you’ve been 3D printed into existence by your AI mum, you’ll explore and platform, battle the fauna and flora all around, and collect the resources you need to unlock new abilities for future runs. There’s actually not a lot more to it than that, and the different mission types are all fairly straightforward.
New-gen proc-gen?
As I mentioned up top, Maschinen-Mensch has talked up the procedural level generation in Mother Machine, and the claim that the game sets a new standard bears at least some examination, I think.
One thing I can say unequivocally, is that the level generation feels cohesive. There aren’t any really weird arrangements, with wild bits of scenery sticking out and making no sense, and that does allow the world to feel authored. The caves themselves look great, too, thanks to the diverse creatures that lives down in the darkness.
Another really positive part of the level design is just how interactive the world is. You can climb pretty much anything, and this makes it feel like you’re constantly exploring as you jump this way and that, swing from vines, and hang from ceilings as you try to grab resources that hang just out of reach.
I also appreciate the way that the devs have tried to incorporate metroidvania elements, with new areas that open up as you enhance different abilities, such as longer climb times or a much bigger jump. The pink crystals that you collect during exploration not only power these evolutions, but they also power certain systems that you must activate in order to advance.
I will happily concede that the cave systems look great thanks to nice partical effects, lots of interesting details to look at, and procedural generation does seem to build well-structured maps. I’m not sure that it sets a whole new standard, but the devs have done a good job here.
Back to the platforming
The traversal is built around a stamina system reminiscent of the one in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and as such you’re limited as you clutch walls and ceilings and move around to hard-to-reach platforms. The constant care required to manage your movement makes Mother Machine a pleasingly tactile experience.
Things get even better when you throw in the mutations. These are probably the best part of the game, although most of them are waiting for you behind a grindy unlock system. Whether you’re belching your friends and enemies about the place, or farting yourself healthy, there are several abilities to choose, and many more to earn through play.
If you’ve got this far, you probably think I love the game, but I’m actually a bit more ambivalent than I sound. The main problem is a technical one; back when I tried the demo the game had performance problems, and some of these have persisted into the final game.
I’ve got a decent gaming laptop with 4060m graphics card and 16GB of RAM, but I still suffered regular frame-rate drops, some screen tearing. Taking the graphics down to “low” helped, but it doesn’t fix the odd-glitchy element and, of course, it doesn’t look as nice. The file size is also bafflingly huge considering the modest amount of content included. All in all, the whole thing feels like it hasn’t been properly optimised.
The other area where Mother Machine struggles is gameplay variety. There are several mission types, but the objectives are pretty simple and there’s just not enough going on within the levels to frequently create the memorable emergent moments that bring a game like this to life. It doesn’t help that the combat can also feel a little under-cooked and simplistic at times, and not as nuanced as the traversal.
At the end of the day…
Despite the fact that I quite like a lot of what Maschinen-Mensch is trying to do with Mother Machine, my mixed feelings mean that I can’t recommend the game as wholeheartedly as I would like.
It feels a bit like an Early Access title in its current state, with the promise of more to come, except… it’s a full release and there’s no more free content on the horizon. What’s more, the second biome that released alongside the base game at launch isn’t included for all players as standard – I found that choice just a little bit odd.
Mother Machine is a solid game, that much I can confirm. When you’re running around with your friends, climbing the walls, and spraying each other with various bodily fluids, I think you’re probably gonna have some really good times. It’s just a shame then, that everything around the core gameplay loop doesn’t quite click together as elegantly as it should, because I love the irreverant aesthetic (which reminded me a little of Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee), the super-tactile platforming, and those gremlin-critters a pretty bloody cute, too.
Mother Machine is out now on PC (Win) and I played the game via access kindly provided by the developers and their PR friends.
