The Incredible Machine: Even More Contraptions

There are 250 gizmos to build here, some designed for single players and some designed for head-to-head puzzling competition. There is also a field where players can design their own Rube Goldberg Machine from scratch. The vast amount of projects and their complexity make this a program with staying power. Mercifully, there is a tutorial that takes rookies and right-brainers in hand. Players can choose four levels of difficulty: easy, which is quite challenging; to expert, which is insane. Mitigating the challenge factor is a function that turns the cursor into a question mark, and allows players to inspect gadget elements and get in-depth information about what each object and surface does.

This game does a great job graphically. The well-rendered objects all perform as they ought, and form never hinders function. A thoughtful extra is a place where mad scientists can mess with their invention's appearance and background music: nice final touches for folks who want to take their custom-built games online to challenge others who are addicted to The Incredible Machine. This program's biggest strength is that it manages to put a humorous and creative spin on physics and engineering. They're not just giving you levers and weights to work with, they're giving you bottle rockets and alligators. A final wonderful point: there is no "right way" to build your contraption. If you scrabble something together that achieves the goal, it's right, no matter if you used the antigravity pad on the cat or on the bowling ball. No age rating given; we recommend ages 8 and up. --Anne Erickson

Amazon.com Product Description
The award-winning legacy continues. The newest installment in the Incredible Machine series, The Incredible Machine: Even More Contraptions combines 250 brand-new puzzles, a more entertaining head-to-head mode, the ability to swap puzzles with the world over the Internet, and an updated easy-to-use interface.

Product Description

Step into our lab, don the whitecoat, and join us for lots of outrageous, inventive, experimental fun.



In the Return of the Incredible Machine: Contraptions, you're the inventor asyou attempt to solve over 250 wildly imaginative puzzles. Create incrediblemachines out of a diverse assortment of crazy and colorful parts, ranging fromropes, pulleys, and bowling balls, to cheese driven mouse motors. And aftersolving the puzzles, make your own with the built-in puzzle editor!

• Over 250 unique and challenging "Contraptions" to solve, most with multiple solutions!
• Create and save your own puzzles to share with friends. Over 100 different parts to mix and match.
• Certain Programmable Parts allow for truly custom puzzles. Accurate physics models create realistic interactions between parts.
• Change the gravity and air pressure for each "Contraption" to simulate different worlds, or outer space. Go head-to-head with a friend in the two-player mode, and see who can solve the "Contraption" first.
• An in-depth tutorial teaches you about the parts, and how they work.

• Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP
• Pentium 90MHz processor 
• 32MB of RAM
• 50MB of Hard Drive Space
• Windows-compatible Sound Card
• 4X CD-ROM Drive
• Mouse
• Keyboard