Crazy Machines Review

If you’re looking for a head-scratching collection of puzzles to solve then downloading Crazy Machines is a real no-brainer.

These Rube Goldberg-style contraptions challenge players to drag and drop items onto the screen in order to accomplish a specific goal. One might be for a ball to fall into a bucket, steam to blow out of pipes or aligning gears and rubber bands to move an item from one area to the other.

In short, while the game isnt much to look at (its sequel is much prettier), Crazy Machines gives you one fantastic cerebral workout.

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If you’re looking for a head-scratching collection of puzzles to solve then downloading Crazy Machines is a real no-brainer.

These Rube Goldberg-style contraptions challenge players to drag and drop items onto the screen in order to accomplish a specific goal. One might be for a ball to fall into a bucket, steam to blow out of pipes or aligning gears and rubber bands to move an item from one area to the other.

In short, while the game isnt much to look at (its sequel is much prettier), Crazy Machines gives you one fantastic cerebral workout.

The game begins with an Einstein-looking professor who says Welcome to my laboratory, ignoramus. OK, so we werent too offended [cough], but we learn our white-haired mentor wants us to manipulate items for him.

The right-hand side of the screen has all the items we need to accomplish the goal,  such as causing a basketball to roll down a platform,  but you’re not told where to put the two dominoes, pulleys and a log. Through trial and error youll place the items on the main screen, rotate them if need be, and take into account real-world physics (such as placing a spring under a ball, which will cause it to bounce in a given direction, candles that heat items or magnets that pull towards them). When all your items are in place, press a yellow button and the chain of events will commence. If youre close, you might just need to tweak the angle or position of the items until mission accomplished.

If anyone is old enough to remember a decade-old computer game series called Incredible Machines, this casual game download will remind you of it.

While you try to solve these contraptions, the prof will repeat a string of insulting jabs at you (which gets annoying after a while) not to mention there isn’t a hint button or "ok I give up, tell me how to solve this dang puzzle" button. Therefore, unless you have some serious patience, dont download this tough puzzler. But it certainly can be rewarding: here I am with my 6-year-old son, Jacob, as we tried for nearly 25 minutes to solve one particular puzzle; when we finally succeeded, we hollered, victoriously raised our hands in the air and gave each other a hug (awwww).

More than 200 puzzles are included in Crazy Machines, which is quite a lot of fingernail-biting gameplay. We wouldve scored this game higher if the developers added a hint system so stuck gamers wouldnt get frustrated, plus the graphics are subpar compared to other casual games, but this title is certainly unique among todays overpopulated genres and will provide many hours of mind-numbingly good fun.

The good

    The bad

      60 out of 100