Amazing Machines

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Amazing Machines, released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2022, is a Puzzle game that’s clearly trying to imitate the classic game series, The Incredible Machine, similarly giving players an odd assortment of objects to use to accomplish a goal – in this case, getting all of the aliens off the screen.

The game doesn’t really tell you this is what you’re meant to do, nor does it give you any instruction how to use the various machines. You’re clearly intended to just figure it out on your own, for better or worse. Usually worse, as the game doesn’t always make sense, and at times isn’t even consistent, with some objects affected by gravity and others not, with nothing to distinguish the two.

The presentation here isn’t going to thrill anyone, using simple cartoony 2D objects and aliens on a static cartoony background. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of unifying theme or anything here, just a bunch of stuff tossed in together here. This is joined by a techno-esque synthesized soundtrack that similarly doesn’t seem to fit this game’s whimsical presentation. And this is all tied together by a menu system that seems designed for mobile devices, even though to the best I can find this doesn’t appear to be a mobile game.

Unfortunately, the menus aren’t just a matter of visual ugliness, the entire game seems poorly-ported to Nintendo Switch, with players needing to manually move a cursor to on-screen menu buttons to do anything. Even something as simple as starting up the machines or going back to designing things isn’t tied to +/- or the L&R buttons, which are apparently unused in most control modes.

It’s shockingly lazy, which is confusing when this game supports both the touchscreen and gyroscopic motion controls. On that note, the touchscreen is definitely the way to go here, and that’s clearly how the game was intended to be played. Even if playing with touchscreen controls, there’s no level reset, and apparently no way to undo some actions. This game is just a mess.

I suppose once you get past the terrible menus and awful presentation and the lack of any instruction, the core gameplay here is at least decent. But that’s just it – it is only, at best, decent. And given that this game is copying a gameplay formula that is over 30 years old, and is selling for $20, that’s absolutely absurd.

If you want a Puzzle game like The Incredible Machine on Nintendo Switch, Amazing Machines might fit the bill, but only if you can put up with how terrible the menus are, how ugly this game is, how unoriginal it is, and if you get it in a very good sale. But that’s so many “ifs”, and the Nintendo Switch has plenty of other great Puzzle games that aren’t a low-effort rip-off. Just get one of those instead.

tl;dr – Amazing Machines is a Puzzle game where players must use various contraptions to get all aliens off the screen. It’s clearly trying to copy the classic formula of The Incredible Machine games, and it is generally doing a poor job of it, with a terrible presentation, extremely poorly-designed menus, a lack of anything original to contribute, and an insultingly bloated $20 price tag. There may be some fun to have here, but you’re far better off spending your money elsewhere.

Grade: D+

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