Contraption Maker

by Spotkin

Vitals:

• Rube Goldburg Puzzler
• Worth the price ($14.99)
• Approx. 10 hours playtime
• Immense replay value

The makers of the classic Incredible Machine are back with more wacky Rube Goldburgian puzzles and creative mayhem. Contraption Maker revives the circuitous, absurd and educational engineering puzzle game genre, duplicating all old mechanics that made its predecessor so great while introducing a slew of new objects and features.

For me Incredible Machine is one of the great games of my childhood. The wacky chain reactions and challenging cause effect problem solving puzzles would keep me occupied for hours on end. Contraption Maker appeals for those very same reasons though I’ll admit some elements feel slightly juvenile now. It should however still be a wonderful bit of nostalgia for anyone who loved the Incredible Machine as well as an excellent family friendly educational tool for anyone looking to put a little fun into their child’s development of a problem solving skill set.

The objective here is to put a cat in a box then drop it down a bottomless pit. Reddit is not going to be happy.

Contraption Maker brings back the traditional puzzle mode, wherein a player must cause a chain reaction to cause a desired effect through the use of various objects, each of which has its own physics and properties. The game comes with a sizable library of scenarios of varying difficulty. The later puzzles are actually pretty hard. One oddity I noted while playing through them however was the games tendency to jump about through the difficulty levels. For example on several occasions I would have just completed an easy level puzzle and I would find myself, after selecting “next puzzle” immediately facing a hard puzzle. It can be somewhat jarring, especially if you are trying to complete the game in a linear manner, to have just knocked a bowling ball into a bucket then immediately be tasked with helping prevent the uprising of an army of clones using a cannon, a flashlight, some rope and a hamster. It’s easy enough to click out to the menu and pick up where you left off but it is somewhat annoying. It’s also worth mentioning that a majority of the puzzles have zany back stories and it makes it much easier to engage with them when instead of just popping a blimp you are stopping the self-destruct system of a secret base.   

 Free build mode is also available so players can step outside the confines of the presets built by the games makers and experiment with any object they like, building their own contraptions and puzzles for friends. Any puzzles that are built can also be uploaded onto the steam workshop to share with other users. Players looking to access this user generated content can do so easily by clicking the in game community button. This kind of workshop integration always nice to see and is perfectly suited to a game where players designs are the core of the games extended life. The makers have even gone so far as to hold build offs in which user created designs are judged by the game creators. The level of community integration in the game is exemplary and provides for a theoretically endless amount of content.

Some of the puzzles get pretty complicated

 Contraption maker also features an in game link to their wiki, for players looking to learn more about how various objects work as well as a clearly labeled bug report option which, while concerning at first, is a great way for a game to ensure that any errors players encounter are fixed quickly. The game also promises to release updates with new elements that can be incorporated into players contraptions, already dogs have been introduced in a free patch.

Contraption make is a great successor to the incredible machine and will be enjoyable to fans of the classic or more contemporary puzzle enthusiasts. The game runs for $14.99 on steam and considering the immense amount of additional content is probably worth picking up.