For the people, it was just another exhilarating day, punching and rocketing through a deformed, deranged B-movie. For a decorated Pangea Software, this was maybe their most passionate, prestigious creation. Brian Greenstone and his frequent co-developers had the notion to refine their previous Macintosh action platformers, Nanosaur and Bugdom, into nostalgia for cheesy, laughable Hollywood science fantasy films. As the 2000s got started, this studio wasn't as pressured to prove the PowerPC Mac's polygonal potential, but Otto Matic still fits in with its other pack-in game brethren. All that's changed is Greenstone's attention to detail and playability, previously more of a secondary concern. This Flash Gordon reel gone wrong doesn't deviate from the collect-a-thon adventure template of its predecessors, yet it delivers on the promises they'd made but couldn't quite realize. Greenstone had finally delivered; the eponymous hero had arrived in both style and substance.

Players boot into a cosmos of theremins, campy orchestration, big-brained extraterrestrials, provincial UFO bait humans awaiting doom, and this dorky but capable android who kind of resembles Rayman. Start a new game and you're greeted with something rather familiar, yet different: simple keyboard-mouse controls, hostages to rescue, plentiful cartoon violence, and a designer's mean streak hiding in plain sight. The delight's in the details, as Otto has an assortment of weapons and power-ups with which to defeat the alien invaders and warp these humans to safety. It's just as likely you'll fall into a puddle and short-circuit, though, or mistime a long distance jump-jet only to fall into an abyss. What I really liked in even the earliest Pangea soft I've tried, Mighty Mike, is this disarming aesthetic tied closely with such dangers. I hesitate to claim this mix of Ed Wood, Forbidden Planet, and '90s mascot platformers will appeal to everyone (some find it disturbing, let alone off-putting), but it's far from forgettable in a sea of similar titles. It helps that the modern open-source port's as usable as others.

The dichotomy between Otto Matic's importance for modern Mac gaming and its selfish genre reverence isn't lost on me. One wouldn't guess this simple 10-stage, single-sitting affair could offer much more than Pangea's other single-player romps. On top of its release as a bundled app, they turned to Aspyr for pressing and publishing a retail version, followed by the standard Windows ports. Accordingly, the evolution of Greenstone's 3D games always ran in tandem with Apple's revival and continuation of their Y2K-era consumer offerings. His yearly releases demanded either using the most recent new desktop or laptop Macs, or some manner of upgrade for anyone wielding an expandable Power Mac. Fans of Nanosaur already couldn't play it on a 2001 model unless they booted into Mac OS 9, for example, while the likes of Billy Western would arrive a year later solely for Mac OS X. The studio's progress from one-man demo team to purveyor of epoch-defining commercial games feels almost fated.

So I think it's fitting how a retro B-movie adventure, celebrating a transformed media legacy, dovetails with Apple letting their classic OS fade gracefully into legacy. OS X Cheetah and Puma were striking new operating systems aimed at a more inclusive, cross-market audience for these computers, as well as new products like the iPod. Otto Matic pairs well here by offering the best overall balance of accessibility, challenge, and longevity in Pangea's catalog—matched only by Cro-Mag Rally from 2000, a network multi-player kart racer that would one day grace the iPhone App Store charts. Maybe taking that year off from a predictable sequel to Rollie McFly's exploits was all Greenstone & co. needed to reflect on what worked and what didn't. The first two levels here evoke Bugdom's opening, sure, but with much improved presentation, player readability, and overall pacing. Better yet, stage two isn't just a repeat of the opener like before; you leave the Kansas farming community for a whole different planet!

Never does Otto Matic settle for reusing environments when it could just throw you into the deep end somewhere else, or at least into a boss arena. We go from the sanctity of our silver rocket to scruffy cowpokes and beehive hairdressers, then to literally Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and other mutated comestibles. Next we're chasing down our hapless primate friends across worlds of exploding crystals and elemental blobs, or an airborne theme park of clowns, avian automatons, and four-armed wrestler babies! Pangea practiced a great sense for variety and charm with their thinly-veiled take on A Bug's Life, but the idiosyncractic sights and sounds here feel all their own. I'd even say this game avoids the trap of indulging in the same trope-y xenophobia its inspirations did, mainly by avoiding or at least muddling any clear Cold War allegories. Otto's just as much an interloper here as their sworn enemies, a metallic middleman acting for peacekeepers from beyond. Both your post-level results and Game Over screens show a striking comparison, with humans treated like cattle by either party. Granted, we're not the ones transmogrifying them into jumpsuit-adorned cranial peons.

Parts of the game are actually a bit more challenging than the harder bits in Bugdom, but tuned to give players more leeway and options for engagement. For starters, the jump-jet move works even better for these maps than the ball & spin-dash did previously. It helps that you've got a lot more draw distance throughout Otto Matic, the most important graphical upgrade beyond just particles and lighting. Whereas the rolling physics could sometimes work against player movement and combat, boosting up and forward through the air has enough speed and inertia for you to feel in control. Punching's not too different from Rollie's kicks, but all the pick-ups, from ray-guns to screen-clearing shockwaves, have more immediate utility. (Part of your score bonus also comes from having as much ammo as possible, incentivizing skillful usage!) But above all, the game genuinely encourages you to play fast and risky, sending UFOs to snatch humans away before you can.

I think back to something as loved or hated as Jet Set Radio, which similarly has a less-than-agile control scheme one must master to get an optimal outcome. Frequently using the jump-jet ensures you can reach those cheerleaders and labcoats in time, but drains your own fuel, requiring engagement with enemies and breakables to replenish that gauge. Both games have you watching your resources while finding shortcuts to dive into the action, which in Otto's case means farming baddies for rocket fuel to leave the stage. It's not all that removed from grabbing graffiti cans and kiting the Tokyo-to police, and that reflects how much fun I had on every stage. A couple bits still irritate me here and there, like the unwieldy, tediously scarce embiggening potions on the jungle planet. (The bumper cars puzzles are annoying at first, but straight-up funny after a time.) It's still a somewhat janky piece of work on the fringes, like anything Greenstone made with his '80s design influences chafing against newer trends. But I can recommend this to any 3D platformer fan without reservation—neither too insubstantial nor too drawn out.

And I find it hard to imagine Otto Matic releasing for the first time today with its mix of earnest pastiche, technological showcase, and quaint sophistication. Mac OS X early adopters clamored for anything to justify that $129 pricetag and whatever new components their machine needed; Pangea was always there to provide a solution. As my father and I walked into the local Apple store early in the decade, we both had a few minutes of toying around with Otto's Asmov-ian antics, no different in my mind from Greenstone's other computer-lab classics. But playing this now has me asking if he'd finally done real playtesting beyond bug fixes and the like. No aggravating boss fights, ample room to improvise in a pinch, and worlds big enough to explore but never feel exhausting—their team came a long way while making this. The lead developer's estimation of the game speaks volumes, as though he was on a mission to prove there was a kernel of greatness hiding within what Nanosaur started. Nowadays I'd expect needlessly ironic dialogue, some forced cynicism, or concessions to streamers and those who prefer more content at all costs. Players back then had their own pet complaints and excuses to disqualify a game this simple from the conversation, which is why I can respect the focus displayed here.

Confidence, then, is what I hoped for and gladly found all throughout Otto Matic. It's present everywhere, from Duncan Knarr's vivid, humorous characters to Aleksander Dimitrijevic's impressively modernized B-movie music. Crawling through the bombed-out urban dungeon on Planet Knarr, electrifying dormant doors and teleporters in the midst of a theremin serenade, reminded me of the original Ratchet & Clank in a strong way. And hijacking a ditched UFO after evading lava, ice, and hordes of animated construction tools on Planet Deniz was certainly one of the experiences ever found in video games. (Yet another aspect improved on here are the vehicular sections, from Planet Snoth's magnet water skiing to Planet Shebanek being this weighty, easter egg-ridden riff on Choplifter where you use said UFO to liberate the POW camp.) Factor in the usual level skip cheat and it's fun to just select whichever flavor of Pangea Platformer Punk one desires, assuming high scores aren't a concern.

Just imagine if there were usable modding tools for this version, or if the game hadn't sunk into obscurity alongside neighboring iPhone-era releases of dubious relevance. It's so far the Pangea game I'd most enjoy a revival of, just for how well it captures an underserved style. A certain dino and isopod both got variably appreciated sequels following this and Cro-Mag Rally, but nothing of the sort for Greenstone's own favorite in that bunch? That's honestly the last thing I'd expect if I'd played this back in Xmas 2001, seeing the potential on display here. If I had to speculate, maybe the fear of a disappointing successor turned the team away from using Our Metallic Pal Who's Fun to Be With again. Same goes for Mighty Mike, an even more moldable, reusable character premise. Sequelitis never afflicted the startup like some other (ex-)Mac groups of the time, particularly Bungie and Ambrosia Software, but then I suppose any game releasing in the wake of iMac fever, not within it, couldn't justify the treatment. Otto Matic never reached the notoriety of its precursors, for better or worse, and that means it retains a bit of humility and mystique all these years later.

The OS X era heralded tougher days for Pangea and its peers, as its backwards compatibility and plethora of incoming Windows ports meant these Mac exclusives weren't as commercially savvy. That one company making a military sci-fi FPS jumped ship to Microsoft, the once great Ambrosia shifted direction towards productivity nagware, and Greenstone had his tight bundle deal with Apple to thank for royalties. As a result, I consider Otto Matic emblematic of the Mac platform's transition from underdog game development to a more homogenized sector. I spent most of my childhood Mac years playing a port of Civilization IV, after all, or the OS 8 version of Civilization II via the Classic environment. Neither of those really pushed anything exclusive to OS X or Apple hardware; I'm unsurprised that Pangea hopped onto the iOS train as soon as they could use the SDK! Times were a-changing for the Mac universe, so flexibility and letting the past go was important too. At the end of it all, I appreciate what Otto Matic achieved in its time just as much as I enjoy how it plays now.

Completed for the Backloggd Discord server’s Game of the Week club, Mar. 7 - 13, 2023

     ‘Hari realized that his immortal friend, capable of extending his vision from X rays to the radio spectrum, was at the moment, envious.’
     – Isaac Asimov, Robots and Empire, 1985.

Played during the Backloggd’s Game of the Week (Mar. 7 – Mar. 13, 2023).

On Altair IV, the Krells' great machine sprawls over an improbable area, the bare minimum to generate the computing power needed to materialise any object. Dr. Edward Morbius invites Adams and Ostrow to visit this vast complex in Forbidden Planet (1956), in an overhead shot that dwarfs the characters under the cold angles of the alien machinery. In the following scenes, the viewer sees a huge transmitter towering over bleached globes, blinking mysteriously. Forbidden Planet, like many films of the 1950s, left its mark on science fiction cinema through the quality of its special effects and its atypical setting. The action takes place far from Earth, and Robby the Robot flanks the humans and impresses with his robust appearance, elements that became central to this type of cinema. A whole visual imaginary was thus developed, which would be reproduced in the great science-fiction epics of the Cold War, thereby establishing the credentials of a serious and engaged science-fiction. At the same time, the space opera was reborn, much more optimistic and adventurous, following the great success of the pulp magazines.

     The merits of an eerie adventure

When Pangea Software announced Otto Matic in 2001, the references to these old trends were deliberate and part of the marketing strategy, thus placing the game within a circumscribed stylistic framework. While Nanosaur (1998) and Bugdom (1999), with their short development time, were rather clumsy in their presentation, Otto Matic was more deliberate. The player embodies the eponymous robot from deep space whose goal is to save humanity from the Brain Aliens, who are more or less reminiscent of the pod people in The Body Snatchers (1954). Similar to Bugdom, Otto must traverse ten different levels, saving various humans from being captured before reaching the exit or defeating a boss.

The game effectively encapsulates the ideas of the previous two titles, borrowing the shooter elements of Nanosaur and integrating them into a Bugdom-like adventure platformer. The inherent flaws of both titles are generally corrected or smoothed out, such as the camera automatically refocusing or Otto's shots automatically targeting the nearest enemy as long as its direction is broadly correct. Bugdom's roll has been replaced by a jetpack, which allows for better trajectory control and can be used situationally to break through walls or cross streams of water or lava. For the most part, the title is more readable and enjoyable than its predecessors, thanks to better level design, better communication of its intentions and mechanics that naturally aid progression.

The many environments help to give Otto Matic a character that oscillates between the eerie and the absurd. Landscapes ravaged by industrialisation and war give way to more phantasmal levels, such as Planet Rennie and its nightmarish carnival inhabited by deformed clowns, fish bombers and four-armed babies. There is a constant tension in the title, which revels in portraying alien civilisations as disturbing, however ideologically misguided it may be. The Brain Aliens are bathed in a sickly glow and their brains form a comically repulsive protrusion, while the environments of the various planets are decidedly hostile. The soundtrack uses alarming rhythms and bastard instrumentation to emphasise the unpleasant aspect of the invasion: harshly strummed strings accompany relentless bass, while strange noises abound in the background, evoking the chaos of Helios Creed's Planet X (1994). Otto Matic is a game that is always a little awkward to explore, so much so that the player remains on their guard.

     An overall structure full of archaisms

While slightly less punishing than Bugdom, this title remains demanding. To activate the exit, the player must collect blue orbs, which serve as fuel for Otto's rocket. The player then has to open bonus capsules or fight enemies that are sometimes too powerful for the robot. Despite the assisted aiming, positioning oneself properly to change weapons and shoot is not so easy: Otto has an animation lock when swapping equipment, which is problematic in more confined areas. Similarly, while the camera makes platforming sections easier, it is far from perfect. On the planet Sulak and beyond, the camera is far too close to the ground, preventing the player from getting a real sense of the distances between platforms that bridge deadly areas. It is easy to miss a jump due to a lack of information, and the title immediately punishes this by taking a life. Sometimes the level gimmicks are the troublesome instances, such as on Planet Snoth, where water-skiing behind the metal dragon is more frustrating than anything else.

Otto Matic still lacks ergonomics and persists in archaic game designs that do not necessarily belong in the early 2000s. Of course, the player regains lives more easily, but some sections remain needlessly cruel. The second level is certainly one of the most difficult in the game and Sulak replicates Bugdom's lack of readability, with a jungle where everything looks the same: the visual cues are so lacking that one could easily go in circles, unlike the other levels, where the linear directionality works better. Generally speaking, when the title assumes its wacky and strange nature, favouring slightly emergent sections – such as the bumper cars on Rennie or the flying saucer sequence on Shebanek – it stands out, at the cost of a slight frustration with the sometimes ill-adapted controls. More conventional sequences such as the platforming to reach the Slime Machine are also enjoyable, because Otto's inertia works well with these kinds of platforms. But as soon as the title returns to hackneyed conventions and integrates elements without thinking about their relevance, the camera and control issues are greatly exacerbated.

Ultimately, Otto Matic's formula, though modernised and more complete, remains very similar to Bugdom. Structurally, it is already outdated and suffers from severe archaisms, perhaps minor for such a short game, but difficult to understand. Perhaps Nanosaur and Bugdom were successes in spite of themselves, released at the right time and on the right platform, impressing a whole generation of children and teenagers, of whom only a tiny number managed to progress beyond the first levels. This is a surprising observation for titles that can be completed in a few meagre hours: who were they intended for? A general public of unknown quality? Pangea Software productions are by no means abhorrent titles, quite the opposite. They are the product of an era and part of the history of Western computer games, yet they struggle to be situated beyond childhood memories and their technical showcase status. Otto Matic, for all its good ideas, does not break this pattern.

i think this was the first actual game i played. i remember launching a program on my parent's old mac and fleeing the room when the sinister intro music began blaring from the speakers.

the game is quite odd to say the least, with an art style that seems almost designed to contort and morph in your memory. i can remember individual things from this game with clarity, but they are always surrounded by the contorting, elusive hellscape that is otto matic's levels. and i don't really want to revisit the game for fear of altering that memory of it