BERLIN, Germany (March 26th, 2025) —The time of the gremlins has finally arrived! Today, indie studioMaschinen-Mensch is proud to release its roguelike/platformer hybrid Mother Machine, now globally available on Steam for all players! Embark on a surreal subterranean journey with a pack of feisty 3D-printed mutant gremlins and their decaying supercomputer of a creator—the titular Mother Machine—to explore the cave networks of an abandoned human space colony and uncover its dark secrets. Whether you’re a solo spelunker or a gremlin squad, Mother Machine provides hours of colorful chaos across a variety of eerily beautiful, procedurally-generated levels where no one run is the same as the one that came before. Ready to meet your maker? Play Mother Machine today!
From the studio that brought you Curious Expedition and Curious Expedition 2, Mother Machine is a roguelike platformer featuring solo play as well as local splitscreen co-op for duos and online co-op for up to four players—including matchmaking and a hub area for players to join up and complete runs together. Mother Machine lets players battle, puzzle and explore their way through atmospheric alien caves, where they obtain new mutations to upgrade the skillsets of their gremlins and unlock powers both fearsome and disgusting. Will you be able to find salvation for you and your beloved robotic Mother? Or will you fall prey to the bizarre dangers of the planet’s catacombs?
The base game for Mother Machine will be available for the price of 14.99€ / $14.99 USD, and players can enjoy a special launch day discount of 10% off! As well, Maschinen-Mensch is pleased to offer additional launch day DLC that will be free for all players until April 9th, 2025! The Misty Grove DLC will be completely free for exactly 3 weeks—after April 9th, the DLC will be priced at 9.99€ / $9.99 USD.
The Misty Grove DLC is an optional expansion for those who love the core gameplay of the base game and want more. It introduces Misty Grove, a biome variation that offers a fresh environment, new enemies, unique platforming challenges, an exclusive boss, and additional mutations. It’s an alternativeto the base game’s content, rather than something that extends or completes it.
In Mother Machine, players can:
Create and control their own unique chaos gremlin, capable of seamlessly running, climbing and leaping through intricate procedurally-generated alien caves
Customize the abilities of their gremlins with a range of mutations, altering gameplay to suit their preferred playstyle
Share the experience with friends of all skill levels, as the game’s balanced co-op mechanics allow expert cave-runners to join together with novices
Experience unique moments created by emergent gameplay, idiosyncratic level design and the singular brand of chaos that comes from you and your best gaming buddies
Set thousands of years in the future, Mother Machinetakes place on a distant planet once colonized by humans but since abandoned. Left behind by her creators, an Artificial Intelligence faced a problem: without a purpose, she needed to find a way to protect her digital mind from breaking under the burden of being forever alone. Her solution was to create creatures she could care for.
True rascals, with an affinity for mischief and chaos, these little gremlins were bioengineered by their mother to withstand and survive a harsh alien environment. 3D-printed from organic filament by their godlike Mother Machine, these creatures are tasked to collect and explore a vast cave network of a mysterious alien planet, brimming with biodiversity and peculiar life-forms — but the further the gremlins venture, the more they find out about the dark secrets of the planet’s history, and the true ambitions of their mechanical mother.
Maschinen-Mensch is an independent game studio from Berlin founded in 2014 by Johannes Kristmann and Riad Djemili. We love creating games using a mix of carefully hand-crafted elements and procedural gameplay to create unique experiences for players. Our first game Curious Expedition sold more than 500, 000 copies across all platforms.
As a studio we aim to offer opportunities to local artists and creators and strive to be a part of the vivid, wonderful Berlin indie scene through collaborations, events and our shared office space and collective, Saftladen
