This, the original 'The Incredible Machine' is one of the best and most innovative games I have ever played. I am surprised that the idea has not been copied much, as it is one that is entertaining to people of all ages. More games of this type would be extremely welcome.
The premise of the game, to complete a set of wacky apparatus to perform a given task is a simple one, but the puzzles themselves become very challenging. In most cases finding the solution is a very satisfying, and often extremely funny! The only complaint I would make is that sometimes, especially in later puzzles, objects must be placed extremely accurately, and you will find yourself adjusting an object by a few pixels over and over.
.. this rarely detracts from the fun however.
The puzzles are well designed, and most of the time only one solution is possible, not an easy thing to achieve when trying to design complex puzzles of one's own!
A nice addition is the freeform mode, which allows you to play around with your own designs, and create puzzles for other players to attempt. A lot of puzzles are included, including plenty of tutorial puzzles for the beginner (which can be skipped in favour of harder puzzles - though later ones require unlocking by completing the previous puzzle). Despite this generous collection, however, this game is so good that I wish there were even more! Actually, an add-on style sequel exists, with more puzzles and objects, but I
have not been able to obtain this.
I would rate this game higher than its windows based sequels, mainly because the behaviour of the objects is logical and fairly realistic. Future games introduced sillier objects (like the ball-flipping crocodile...) that were funny but made solutions a little illogical, and made it feel less like the player was building a real machine. These games were also a little easier, and seemed more oriented towards children.
All in all, I recommend this game to anyone who likes a brain exercising challenge! It is addictive, should last even the cleverest player a number of days to complete, and luckily, runs well on windows XP machines (mine at least) without fiddling about with settings and compatibility software.
