Product Review
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.
Incredible Machine: Even More Contraptions gives players dozens of tools that perform an action: balls that bounce, cats that chase (and don't bounce), pulleys, ropes, generators, and yes, mandrill baboons on conveyer belts, bananas a-dangle in front of them. Then players are given a problem to solve with all of this crazy energy.
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.
|
