http://steamcharts.com/app/351920Continuing in the tradition of the machines types of games-including Crazy Machines 1 and 2, The Incredible Machine series, and Contraption Maker- we have a sequel, Crazy Machines 3.
If you have never played these games, they are traditionally Rube Goldberg puzzles, where you must think about how to combine the items to make some event occur. In this particular game, they have made the move to something like 2.5D. The graphics are very nice, and you can push objects into the Z-plane to dispose of them, even though you can't actually connect objects in the Z-plane.
All of the objects are placed on a grid without rotation, which was initially met with skepticism by the audience that plays this game. But after beating the game, I think it is fine the way it is. Adding rotation would have violated some of the puzzles, and as it is, I don't see any kind of situation where you can't combine the objects to make things happen the way you want. In short, it doesn't feel like we are losing creative value.
This edition offers explosions, lasers, gravity manipulation, timers, and the traditional simple machines like gears and levers.
This is a nontraditional sort of game these days, as it doesn't involve World War II fantasies or multiplayer mayhem, but it's a great game, and if you enjoy puzzle games, check it out.
One drawback is, although they have included an interesting interface to "program" (you can use "chips" that emulate computer logic gates) it doesn't include a programming language interface like Contraption Maker. Contraption Maker has a lot of minigames that people have created using JavaScript that manipulates the parts in the game (and accepts keyboard input!) and Crazy Machines does not. Sort of a drawback for me and the longevity of the community, but I think there is a lot of potential with the way they have implemented the chips. A lot of power and maybe easier than JavaScript for a lot of people. Not to mention, I could not find an API for all of Contraption Maker's parts, so activating and manipulating some of the parts is limited to basic JavaScript movement and interaction. For example, if you want to make the alligator go nuts programmatically, I don't think you can do that. And that's why the chip way of doing things intrigues me. Going to try a few inventions and see how it goes.
So if you don't know what this game is about and you like puzzle games, check it out.
