Rights management can be strange.
Intellectual property bounces around, changes hands, twists, contorts, and distorts.
This is how we end up with, say, Wonder Boy and Bikkuriman World: carbon-copied games
only separated by a licensing deal.
Take Guitar Hero and Rock Band: Mechanically, they’re almost identical (and you can see
how much each draws from FreQuency and Amplitude).
Here’s the latest: Contraption Maker, a chaotic Rube Goldberg simulator that skips
right past any comparison to Crazy Machines or any of the other Johnny-come-latelys in
its genre.
Don’t be mistaken for a second: This is the true successor to the legendary The Incredible
Machine, developed by the same team, featuring the same mechanics, with a new coat of paint
and a few tweaks and updates.
If you’re unfamiliar with the very concept of Rube Goldberg machines…
well, um, go watch the music video for OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass.”
You’ll get the idea.
Common household objects get used in uncommon ways to accomplish something mundane.
You might need a complex series of lasers to open a can of cat food; a massive tangle
of ropes, pulleys, belts, and hamster wheels to turn on a lightbulb, or three seesaws and
a bowling ball to launch a zombie into the moat.
I just pulled every one of those out of my head, but thanks to the level editor, you
can make them all a reality - a distorted, twisted reality.
In fact, building puzzles is as much a focus as just solving the hundred-or-so premade
challenges.
You can set your “Official solution” up however you like, set the victory conditions
piece-by-piece, and then unlock whichever objects you want the player to have at their
disposal.
Why not throw in a few red herrings?
Or a grill?
Adding background elements to give your contraptions a bit more pizazz works the same way as placing
pieces, just without all that pesky physics and whatnot.
One of the most important distinctions to learn is just which pieces are affected by
gravity and which aren’t: Seesaws don’t fall, and can openers don’t fall, but cats
and cheese and basketballs do.
As does this dude - Toolman Tim, which is a combination Home Improvement reference and
a sly nod to the series’ predecessor bundled with a description of exactly what Tim does:
Use tools like dog whistles, dog toys, decoy brains, and even a sled.
Man, that’s just asking for all kinds of winter fun, isn’t it?
If only you could submit your contraptions to, say, Steam Workshop so that everyone could
enjoy them oh wait you can.
Beats lugging around 3.5” floppies like the old Incredible Machine.
Yeah, I’m old, and a good number of you looking at this probably haven’t witnessed
the magic that was The Incredible Machine back in the day when it, Shining Force, and
Mega Man X were the only games that mattered.
(Well, to me, anyway.)
To you young’uns I say: Play this game.
It’s damn fun, and packs plenty of hours of fiddling around with explosives.
To my fellow grognards, I say: TIM’s back.
The actual, honest-to-goodness TIM, just now with regular updates, vastly improved level
sharing, richer animation, variable playfield sizes… honestly, I could go through the
whole laundry list, but just interpret it as “Advancement in every vector.”
Granted, as far as music goes, the disjointed and eclectic soundtrack of the original only
gets up to “Richer, yet disjointed and eclectic,” save for the damnable banjo-and-harmonica
track that sounds like John Popper having a seizure.
So drop the audio if you like, put on your thinking music in the background, and get
ready to party like it’s 1992.
Which, I suppose, means you’d be listening to a playlist of Kris Kross, Nirvana, Right
Said Fred, and of course, Addams Groove by MC Hammer.
Because Christina Ricci.
Just sayin’.