I'm really happy with the final result. I really fell in love with this game *hard* thanks to the graphics, soundtrack and the charm with which the story is basically told only through little animated black and white cartoons depicting past events.
As for the challenges involved, for starters, a few screens are a bit larger than the rest and included a bit of scrolling on multiple planes but being unable to separate the layers, I had to improvise. For the most part, this scrolling only showed a bit more of elements that are blurry in the foreground on either side of the screen so it wasn't too hard to capture. Since Flash (on which the game runs) blurs everything really well, screenshots of areas with scrolling will reveal that portions that are shared across several screen captures aren't identical in a 1 on 1 pixel basis. I did a bit of stitching where I could *barely* see a difference between "before" and "after" pasting a screenshot and that tends to drive me crazy, being big on accuracy but given how it's basically impossible to capture the graphics exactly, I quickly got over it.
Speaking of Flash, I'd be curious to see the original game graphics before they were rendered and smoothed by it. Maybe their resolution is even bigger than what we can see in-game. I know from seeing some wallpapers that the original artwork is much higher resolution than what you can see on my map despite being as big as you can set it.
Another thing that annoyed me a bit is how cramped the whole map feels, but given how large the finished map ended up being, I had to set a limit for the space between the various screens. 48 pixels isn't much when you take in account the instances where two lines have to fit in that limited space but I think it works. Barely. I'm also not happy with how some connections between rooms aren't really obvious, *especially* the elevator and its lowest stop (the little door in the corridor under the pub/kitchen/bad guy parlour) but again, I felt a bit trapped with using space as efficiently as possible while still arranging all the rooms as accurately as possible in terms of their locations in relation to their neighbors.
Apart from that, I used a bit of transparency for the second screen (the large one linking the junkyard with the city) in order to blend the clouds that would scroll quickly enough in the sky, resulting in a pretty clear divide between the leftmost and the rightmost captures.
And finally, the Paint limitations. Everyone, don't waste your time suggesting something better (which would be anything!) because I'm just too set in my ways. Paint works best and fastest for me, but it's quite limited when it comes to the maximum resolution you can work with. I had to split the whole map in two sections, work on both separately and finally stitch them together using Irfanview. Needless to say, it was a bit awkward when I had to make sure they would both match in the middle but I made it work, it just took time and effort. Still, it was totally worth it.
If you like graphical adventure games (and there's been a revival of the genre over the last few years thanks to indie developers) and something unique in a good way, you should give Machinarium a try. It's not that expensive (currently 9,99$ on GOG.com and frequently on sale for less) and like everything done by Amanita Design (Samorost 1 & 2, Botanicula), it's practically a work of art in addition to being a game. Lately, I've practically given up on big AAA titles and I've instead focused on smaller/weirder titles which often offer much more unique and satisfying experiences. Machinarium is one of those games, so if that interests you, I suggest you give it a try.
