Inside Jakub Dvorský's Philosophy — Dropping Words, Building a World You Can Touch

Introduction

Jakub Dvorský runs Amanita Design, a small studio in Prague, Czech Republic. In Japan his games — Samorost, Machinarium, Botanicula — are far better known than his name. Hand-drawn, rusted and moss-grown, dream-warped worlds, almost entirely without text and without spoken dialogue; and yet the player instantly understands, "this is a game about picking something up and carrying it somewhere." He is the designer behind that small miracle.

This is not a tour of his games but a study of the maker himself. Laying out interviews scattered across fifteen years, from 2009 to 2024, I (Kizuki) want to draw out the claims that run through all of them, the habits that recur, and the doubts he has voiced. Reheating my bancha, what I want to check is whether the man who said in 2009 that he is "not a good writer" still stands in the same place fifteen years on. To give the conclusion first: he has barely moved.

Background: it began with a tree root

Dvorský studied at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, and Samorost began as his thesis project — the word is Czech for a tree root that looks like a creature. In 2003, out of school, he founded Amanita Design. It started as a "one-person studio," he recalls: "Indeed, I started alone, but that's a long time ago, and since then, the studio is growing slowly but steadily" (bounthavy, 2020).

The commercial turning point was Machinarium (2009), which he frames as "our first proper or full-length game for PC." "The main game mechanic comes directly from Samorost but it's a more traditional adventure game, with an inventory, menu and everything" (TouchArcade, 2024). Recognition at the IGF drew global attention, and Botanicula, CHUCHEL, Creaks and Pilgrims followed. The studio today is about twenty-five people, yet "we still operate basically like a bunch of friends" (bounthavy, 2020). Near-unknown in Japan, in the English-language indie scene he has long been shorthand for "the wordless, hand-drawn adventure."

Philosophy: subtract words, keep the world simple

Across fifteen years, Dvorský's position converges on a single axis. "We don't like text or lengthy dialogue and stuff. It's our approach to game design. Everything should be quite simple and accessible" (MCV/DEVELOP, 2011). For him, subtracting words is the same act as widening the door. He refuses to segment players by age or platform: "It doesn't matter if you're 5, 15, 40 or 60 years old… As long as you're open to visually striking games with puzzles, there's a good chance you're going to like our games" (bounthavy, 2020).

A second, often-missed part of his philosophy places "playing" above "solving." Speaking of Samorost 3: "You shouldn't want to finish the game as soon as possible, and defeat it by solving all the puzzles. You should enjoy the process of playing with the game. It should be something like a huge interactive toy" (MCV/DEVELOP, 2011). Puzzles are not obstacles but a pretext to touch the world — that is how his design reads. Which is why sound is treated as an equal: "The audio is equally important for us as the visuals because together, it creates the atmosphere and the feeling" (bounthavy, 2020).

Obsessions: atmosphere over technology

Read across his work, certain gestures recur. First, an obsession with hand-drawing and atmosphere. "Visual style and strong atmosphere are essential for us"; "For final graphics, we use mostly Adobe Photoshop. For designing and concept arts it's mostly pencil and paper" (bounthavy, 2020). Technology is not the star: "Our games are not based on technology," he says flatly, which is why Unity or Flash will both do (bounthavy, 2020).

Second, a habit of making originality itself the goal. "It's important because the game will be distinctive. Also, we will enjoy the development more… This we can achieve only by bringing something new to the development" (MCV/DEVELOP, 2011). Launching a fresh art style for each game, evolved from the last, is the consequence of that habit. And third, keeping it light: "It's important not to take it too seriously because after all it's just fun" (bounthavy, 2020). Meticulous hand-drawing coexisting with that lightness is the very texture of his games.

Failure and recovery: it starts with agreeing

Dvorský does not hide his weaknesses. On the criticism that his early puzzles leaned on trial and error, he replied: "I would agree with those critics. It's mostly true." Then he named the fix: "In Machinarium, we are trying to come up with better and more logical puzzles where you can use deduction and still be amused by its originality" (Adventure Classic Gaming, 2009). Not denying the critique but translating it into a design requirement for the next game — that is how he deals with failure.

On process, too, he admits a painful lesson: "now I know it's really important to think everything through before you start producing all the art assets and building the game for real. I know prototyping and playtesting is important and inevitable. I had heard this wisdom before, but now I KNOW that it's true. Personal experience helps a lot" (TouchArcade, 2024). That is the phrasing of someone who paid for an obvious lesson himself. On the long-delayed Phonopolis he chose persistence over retreat: "No matter how long it takes, we're a stubborn group of developers" (TouchArcade, 2024).

Dilemmas: whose difficulty is it?

The tension he keeps returning to is the tug-of-war between kindness and difficulty. He describes Machinarium as having "harder" puzzles "aimed at gamers rather than the general public, even though it's still quite accessible even for non-gamers if they are interested" (TouchArcade, 2024). Yet for the next game, Samorost 3, he steers back: "We want to change the approach so the game is… accessible for non-gamers and inexperienced players" (MCV/DEVELOP, 2011). Game by game, he is re-measuring the intended recipient of the difficulty.

The other tug-of-war is commerce versus authorship. He is candid about the BBC educational game Questionaut: "It was fun to make it, but we did it just to make some money so we can finish our own work-in-progress project Machinarium" (TouchArcade, 2024). Commissions to earn a living, that money spent to protect his own work — he does not hide the double ledger. And yet the motive is clearly placed on the authorship side: "it's not our primary goal to make the most money. We always make what we think, making artistically, and focus on making it the best possible" (bounthavy, 2020).

Influences: Eastern European animation and a shelf of science fiction

The influences he admits are concrete. Asked about Machinarium's mechanical look, he answered: "The direct inspiration comes from old rusty machines, abandoned factories, industrial buildings and also from many science fiction books and films (Stanislav Lem, Douglas Adams, Jules Verne, Ray Bradbury, Stanley Kubrick, Karel Zeman, etc.)" (Adventure Classic Gaming, 2009). The mention of Czech master Karel Zeman is telling: Amanita's visual sense is continuous with the lineage of Eastern European animation and puppetry.

He is equally open about his game influences. As a boy he played "first text adventures… then text adventures with some static graphic… and later all that famous LucasArts games (Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island, etc.) and, of course, Myst" (Adventure Classic Gaming, 2009). Boredom at floods of dialogue, and longing for a Myst-like world that simply stands there in silence — where those two meet, his form, the wordless adventure, comes into being. Nor does he hesitate to call games art: "for me, a game is just medium like any other (painting, literature, music or film) so, of course, even a game could be an art" (Adventure Classic Gaming, 2009).

Kizuki's reading

From here on is my own reading, Kizuki's, stepping one pace beyond what he has said. I read Dvorský as a maker who promoted his own weakness into a design principle. His starting point was the self-assessment that he is "not a good writer" (Adventure Classic Gaming, 2009). Many makers would hire an outside writer to cover for that. He did the opposite. Rather than being ashamed of not writing, he inverted it into a constraint — "then I'll build a world without words." The constraint became a style, and the style became his byword. He did not hide the lack; he made it a pillar.

That, I'd argue, is exactly why placing "playing" above "solving" is consistent for him. In a world that explains nothing in words, the player has no choice but to touch and find out. Trial and error is normally a symptom of bad puzzles, and he accepted that as criticism (2009) — while at the same time reworking it into the value of a "huge interactive toy" (2011). Turning the very time spent touching and testing into pleasure: his fifteen years look, to me, like a record of continually translating his own weaknesses into the appeal of his work. Read it until the bancha goes cold, and this axis never once wavers.

In closing

If you want to understand Dvorský, Machinarium (2009) is a good entry point: it most tightly concentrates the trick of a wordless world you can still play without getting lost. Move on to the short Pilgrims, or to Botanicula, which pushes the lightness of play to its limit, and you'll grasp the feel of the "toy" he talks about. For the more dream-like, primordial texture, go back to Samorost, which began as his thesis.

As related makers, reading him alongside figures this site has already covered — Eric Chahi (design that turns scarcity into space), Jon Ingold (adventure seen from the side of words and story), and Jason Roberts of Gorogoa (building puzzles in pictures without relying on words) — brings the lineage of the 'word-light puzzle adventure' into three dimensions.

Sources

Primary sources referenced in this article:

・Jakub Dvorský interview, Adventure Classic Gaming (Philip Jong), 2009-10-15

・“Interview: Amanita Design” (on Samorost 3 / Botanicula), MCV/DEVELOP, 2011-04-12

・“Interview with Jakub Dvorský — Botanicula, Machinarium, Samorost,” bounthavy.com, 2020-07-19

・“Amanita Design 2024 Interview — Jakub Dvorský” (Mikhail Madnani), TouchArcade, 2024-04-26