Awesome Machine

[h1] Just play Contraption Maker or Crazy Machines. [/h1]

Terrible. Thought it would bring back memories from the game i played as a kid. It has elements but they made levels unlockable only if you get 3 stars in every level in each 'chapter'. This is next to impossible when it takes many turns to fine tune mirror placements to turn light switches on. You'll get to level 20 on your own just fine, but advancement after that will only come from going to a walk through if one even exists and somehow placing and turning each mirror perfectly on the first couple tries. Don't waste your money. I thought it would be good for my kids to play but absolutely not.

A crude copy of [i]The Incredible Machine[/i] (TIM). There's supposed to be a window on the side of the screen that shows the objects you can place, which was part of what made TIM fun. The objects are instead hidden, and you have to press a button to find them, which awkwardly means you can only look at the build screen or the objects - not both. Rather than repeatedly switching between those two screens while trying to visualize how you're going to build the contraption, you're better off dumping all the parts onto the build screen. This is a noteworthy blunder, because not only does it impact the flow of gameplay, but TIM managed to fit the objects bar onto the screen back when screens were far smaller. The buttons have no labels, and hovering the mouse over them shows no information about what they do. The information button itself often does nothing, so you're left not knowing what you're supposed to do. The crudely animated background scenes felt like pointless noise. Restarting after clicking "play" is annoying because the objects get wiped (rather than reset to where you placed them, unless you press the pause button twice, but that apparently stops you from being able to…

Keeps your brain working. Cons The interface sometimes cover the place where you have to install some tools. You cannot hide it. Also you cannot make small adjustments during running the simulation so you have to stop it for a couple of times just to adjust the angle of a mirror and doing so you are loosing points.

Rube works with crappy controls

Awesome puzzle-retry-spamming game!