the incredible machine
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The Incredible Machine team is back with Contraption Maker, now on Steam
If you're a seasoned, old-school Mac gamer, there's a good chance you remember a funky puzzle game called The Incredible Machine. In the game, players had to perform simple tasks by building overly complex Rube Goldberg devices and experimenting with how each piece functioned through trial and error. The game spawned several sequels and even briefly found its way to the App Store. Now, the original team behind The Incredible Machine has evolved the concept with Contraption Maker, just released for OS X. Like its much older brother, Contraption Maker is a toolbox for puzzle solving. There's a huge learning curve and you slowly reveal what each of the dozens of balls, platforms, tubes, plugs, and gadgets actually do, but once you've scaled this mountain you'll spend your time constructing machines to complete a specific task. Each puzzle has a simple end goal, such as feeding a cat or lighting a bomb, but completing that task often requires an insane amount of planning and experimenting. For example, capturing a mouse in a case might be the end goal, but in order to accomplish it you'll need to launch a ball to scare a hamster, which runs on a treadmill that turns a gear and rotates a band, which turns another gear to power a generator, which turns on a light that focuses through a magnifying glass to burn a rope which drops the cage onto the mouse. And that's one of the simpler puzzles. Contraption Maker also includes a custom puzzle creator, so once you best the game's 140 official puzzles -- which you might never accomplish, to be honest -- you can try your luck at an endless number of community-created puzzles. In short, there's quite literally no end to this game, so prepare for some serious puzzle solving. Contraption Maker is currently $14.99 on Steam, which is a great price for this amount of content, especially if you're a puzzle fan. Definitely give it a try.
Contraption Maker, spiritual successor to The Incredible Machine, due this year
1992s Rube Goldberg-em-up The Incredible Machine is getting a spiritual successor this year, produced by the creators of the original. Contraption Maker will makes its debut on Windows PC and Mac, helped along by The Incredible Machine coder Kevin Ryan, producer Jeff Tunnell, and original pixel artist Brian Hahn. Expect improved physics, art and animations in Contraption Maker, developer Timothy Aste told Indie Games. "The higher fidelity graphics really shine on making the puzzles more fun an exciting (especially for those who enjoy flipping cats). In addition, we have some really cool things in development that are new to the series such as a super beefed up the sandbox mode and allow players to build much more elaborate puzzles and machines that can interconnect and be easily share-able over the internet." Aste added Contraption Maker will be mod-friendly. "We have even discussed some really 'out there' stuff such possibly support for Arduino to control real life puzzle elements, but we'll have to wait and see if we can get that far. The Incredible Machine tasks players with constructing a series of complex Rube Goldberg devices around fixed devices to complete an objective. The series was published by Sierra Entertainment. In 2009, Tunnell acquired the rights through his studio, PushButton Labs.%Gallery-188490%
Rovio's Amazing Alex arrives on Android and iOS July 12th, bosses everywhere weep for lost productivity (video)
It's finally happening: after roughly two and a half years, Rovio Mobile is weaning itself off of its addiction to avians. The company's first non-bird title in what feels like an eternity, Amazing Alex, will be reaching the official stores for both Android and iOS come July 12th. Strictly speaking, Rovio is taking something of a shortcut to bringing this Incredible Machine-style puzzler to market: it bought the rights to Casey's Contraptions and enlisted the developers, Miguel Friginal and Noel Llopis, to bring the title into the Rovio family. While that means it's not quite as fresh as it could be, the game has already piqued our interest and could be exposed to many (many, many) more players. While we wait, we'll pour one out for the managers and supervisors bound to lose hours of work from staff trying to finish just one more level.
TUAW's Daily iOS App: The Incredible Machine
A little while back, we spotlighted the great game Casey's Contraptions in this space, and the credit was well-deserved at the time (and still is). But that game was inspired in large part by an older game called The Incredible Machine, worked on by programmer Jeff Tunnell. Tunnell recently went to work for Playdom, and that company is now owned by Disney's interactive arm. So when Tunnell also decided recently that he wanted to bring The Incredible Machine to iOS, Disney gladly helped out with publishing. If I had to choose one, I'd say Casey's Contraptions is the more full-featured title, and my recommendation for that one is as strong as ever. But I also spent some time with Incredible Machine in Disney's booth at E3 this week, and it's a pretty solid title as well. The game comes with 60 levels, with more available in extra packs, and if you're a fan of the old game, most of your favorite items are back in play here. If you shot through Casey's and want another Rube Goldberg game to play, you can give this one a look as well. Incredible Machine is currently available on the App Store as a universal version for iPad, and costs US$2.99.
This is what loving geeks looks like
Who doesn't love geeks, really? But do you love them enough to play a game about building Rube Goldberg machines in order to defeat bullies and impress the ladies? Well then, you should check out the upcoming DS title I Love Geeks. You might be wondering what a game filled with Rube Goldberg puzzles even looks like (we were). Well, we're answering that question for you right here, right now, with some gallery screens to check out.To a history major like this blogger, I Love Geeks looks a bit daunting in its concepts. Hopefully our love for geeks will be enough to overcome any challenges the game has to throw at us. Who knew that geeks could be so intimidating?%Gallery-27588%
Geeks love The Incredible Machine
Oddly enough, Midway's Mechanic Master won't be the only Incredible Machine knockoff coming to the American DS. I Love Geeks is a localized version of Clever DS, the Rube Goldberg-building game based on the German TV show of the same name. The American version, published by CDV, will have a new story from ... Marc Ecko and his team? When we think "geek," we definitely think of hip-hop-influenced fashion designer Marc Ecko.Geeks has some storyline about assisting four scientists to solve puzzles while also dealing with high school bullies or something, but basically it's 100 puzzles requiring machines built out of specific parts to solve various simple problems. Awesome!
