Contraptions

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Contraptions is a Puzzle game that has you placing various odd objects in an environment to create a Rube Goldberg machine to accomplish various tasks. It channels the same sort of spirit as the classic game The Incredible Machine… but with aliens.

Unfortunately, while this game borrows the formula of The Incredible Machine, it falls short in the execution. It’s not always clear in the game exactly what you’re supposed to be doing. Are you trying to destroy the aliens in this level or help get their ship to work? Just how do I make this object react? What is this object supposed to be used for? The game offers a brief tutorial, and then leaves players to figure out the rest, but even messing around with these objects, the answers aren’t always forthcoming. It doesn’t help that the game feels inconsistent. Some objects float in mid-air, while some are affected by gravity. To this game’s credit, it does have a level creator to create and share puzzles with friends, but even that’s difficult to get excited about, given this game’s problems.

Graphically, this game offers nothing of interest – everything here looks like copy-pasted clip art, and the backgrounds don’ even look like they came from the same genre, showing settings that look more like faerie tale locales than a kooky construction site or alien playground.

Fans of The Incredible Machine looking for a nostalgia trip may find hints of it here in Contraptions, but for the most part all that’s been invented here is disappointment.

tl;dr – Contraptions is a Puzzle game that has you using various objects to create a Rube Goldberg machine to complete a goal, much like The Incredible Machine. Unfortunately, the game does a poor job telling you what to do and how to do it that it ends up being more frustrating than fun.

Grade: C-

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