Kelvin and the Infamous Machine

I have a soft spot for the small studio that swings big on personality rather than production budget, and Blyts, an independent Argentinean developer whose prior work was mobile puzzle games, absolutely swings. Kelvin and the Infamous Machine drops you into the shoes of a bumbling research assistant chasing his unhinged boss, Dr. Edwin Lupin, through three chapters of warped history. The premise is wonderfully absurd: Lupin's shower-shaped time machine was laughed out of the scientific community, so naturally his revenge plan involves travelling to period Austria, England, and Renaissance Italy to sabotage Beethoven, Isaac Newton, and Leonardo da Vinci before they can finish their defining works. You, as Kelvin, have to clean up the mess. The core loop is classic graphic adventure fare: click hotspots, collect items, combine them in your inventory, and talk your way through a cast of over 50 fully voiced characters. The UI is streamlined in a way that respects your time. A hotkey briefly highlights every interactive spot on screen, so you are never reduced to pixel-hunting. Puzzles are generally logical and self-contained within each chapter, meaning you will not spend forty minutes backtracking across three locations wondering why a fish and a violin bow do not combine. The difficulty climbs steadily, with the da Vinci chapter delivering the sharpest head-scratchers. One genuine criticism: there is no hint system, and a handful of puzzles lean on clues buried in dialogue that easy-to-skip lines. Accidental dialogue skips with no replay option is a real frustration, and some reviewers noted a movement bug specifically in the Newton chapter that can briefly break immersion. What makes the game quietly special is the craft poured into its visual and audio layers. Every era gets its own hand-drawn environments built in vivid, clean lines that feel genuinely inhabited rather than like a painted backdrop with a sprite stuck on top. The soundtrack shifts character with each time period and location, and there is a graveyard theme in the da Vinci chapter that is perfectly spooky without tipping into drama the game does not earn. The voice acting is the real overachiever here: a small cast covering dozens of distinct characters, each performed with clear comedic timing. The humour lands because of how it is delivered, not just what is said. The honest limitation is length. Most players finish in four to six hours depending on puzzle patience. A planned Kickstarter stretch that would have added Tesla and Einstein chapters never materialised, and you feel the absence of a fourth act the moment the credits roll. The three chapters that exist are polished and purposeful, but you will close the game wanting more, which is both a compliment and a mild sting. For genre veterans, the puzzle difficulty will feel gentle. For newcomers to point-and-click, the lack of a hint system complicates the otherwise welcoming entry slope. This one sits squarely in the middle: approachable enough for casual players, charming enough to satisfy seasoned adventurers, just not long enough to challenge either group for very long.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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