Spinning Those Wheels
The Incredible Machine

Undoubtedly, one of my favorite games of all time was Dynamix's Incredible Machine. In its day, many years ago, Incredible Machine was the utmost computer puzzle game. It gave you a selection of components--cannons, ramps, bowling balls, jack in the boxes, mouse-powered treadmill motors, and monkeys pedaling stationary bicycles– and challenged you to arrange them, Rube Goldberg style, to solve a puzzle. It was the ultimate logic game - intriguing, fun to play, and almost entirely non-violent.

Each scenario asked you to perform a function - to turn a certain gear, break an object, or make some object land in a certain place. In some ways, The Incredible Machine was a computerized version of the old Mousetrap board game - remember the crank that activated a boot, which kicked a bucket, which dropped the marble, which rolled down ramps, which hit the see-saw, which made the man jump in the tub, and so on? Then you have the right idea.

I have often wondered why there were no recent versions of Incredible Machine, but Sierra has finally resurrected it in a new version: Return of Incredible Machine: Contraptions. Like Dynamix's original, this version lets you build crazy contraptions on its virtual drawing board. As before, you try to accomplish a seemingly simple task, such as causing a ball to bounce off of the screen or lighting a candle, by concocting convoluted machines from the game's diverse collection of spare parts. Since the game relies mostly on the laws of physics, there is often more than one way to logically solve an objective.

The game starts with a wacky inventor/professor who is looking for an apprentice. It's up to players to take the professor's challenge to solve a series of unfinished contraptions. The levels start out absurdly easy, and quickly become challenging as you progress through them.

The game comes with some 100 different parts to work with, a wacky array of objects, including various balls, helium-filled balloons, blimps, switches, fans (which blow the balloons), walls, see-saws, rockets, magnifying glasses that create heat from flashlight beams, solar panels, flint and steel, pulleys, toasters, generators, electric motors, and lots more. As before, the game applies a decent, quite consistent physics model. In many instances, you may solve the logic of a puzzle, but still have to move objects around a bit to make your solution work. For example, you often have to move ramps and other objects so a ball bounces just as it needs to, so it can hit another object.

Another strong feature (first introduced in Dynamix's first sequel, "More of the Incredible Machine") is the ability to create your own customized puzzles and trade them with other players who own the game. In these, you can also use programmable parts that perform a task that you designate. In this way, the gaming possibilities with this title are endless. If younger children are intrigued by the game, but the existing puzzles are too hard for them, you can create simpler challenges. I like the way that the game lets you customize the gravity and air pressure in custom games.

If you want to compete against others, there's a two-player mode in which the object is to solve a puzzle first. As before, the game's interface is well laid out and intuitive, and includes an excellent tutorial to teach you about the parts and how they work.

In play, I found this latest version of Incredible Machine was much like the earlier editions. In fact, as I went through the tutorial, I recalled many of the very same game levels. The graphics are certainly a step above the earlier versions, and Contraptions features far more sophisticated sound. I noticed other nice touches - for example, balls now roll down ramps. In the old days, the balls followed the ramps, but didn't roll or spin.

Incredible Machine doesn't offer a much more sophisticated game or take advantage of the latest computer technology-it offers the same brain-busting logic that the original game was famous for. But why tinker with a concept that is so obviously a winner?

In all, Return of the Incredible Machine: Contraptions is a solid and challenging logic game wrapped in funny, zany cartoon graphics that will keep you entertained and thinking for hours. It's particularly great for kids, as it taxes their brain power, not their arcade/finger-coordination, and it's non-violent. The ball rolls, drops on the seesaw, flips the banana . . . life is, indeed, just one thing after another.

909-593-9675 e-mail:wkawamoto@earthlink.net