Crazy Machines 2

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It's got Incredible Machine style puzzles with a modern physics engine. It's like peanut butter and chocolate, the nuttiness complements the milky chocolate and it goes down smooth. And in the case of Crazy Machines 2, it's tastier than a Reese's cup. Let's talk about the game, this analogy is making me hungry.

Crazy Machines 2, at it's most basic, is familiar to anyone who's played The Incredible Machine. You have a certain limited amount of parts to build a Rube-Goldberg-esqe machine to solve a simple problem like lighting a candle or popping a balloon. Where Crazy Machines 2 is unique is that it offers parts that include catapults, steam engines, blowtorches and even lasers to complete your objectives, all simulated with real physics. The physics engine is great and allows a unique approach to the genre. Ropes can dangle from hooks, and fuses can swing freely using natural physics to allow some pretty awesome setups and creative puzzles.

There's hundreds of levels, several play modes and a great tutorial. It's very kid friendly with an innovative help system in case you get stuck. You can see the entire solution, or just see parts of the completed solution for a quick hint.

Why You Should Check This Out: It's physics meets the Incredible Machine, the most natural combination there is. The gameplay is addictive and the physics gives you new creative puzzle-solving possibilities. It's also polished and kid friendly, if you have a kid that wants to learn about physics, there's no better game than this.


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Comments

Just wanted to thank you for bringing these games to attention as my kid's now have several games to play that I consider both entertaining and somewhat educational. Don't know if you guys get enough thanks for the work you do here but I for one really appreciate it.

I loved The Incredible Machine games, and this looks great. I'll have to see if I can get the wife interested in playing this with me. Thanks for pointing it out!

I like this game, but I had some pretty serious technical issues getting it installed and working. I eventually got it, and there's help out there, but fair warning.

DrunkenSleipnir wrote:

I like this game, but I had some pretty serious technical issues getting it installed and working. I eventually got it, and there's help out there, but fair warning.

Care to explain what was wrong and how you fixed it? I'm sure it would be useful if anyone else has similar issues.

Thanks for the Direct Download link, more articles should have that.

yea this is a very good game. i bought it about 4 months ago when a circuit city was going out of business cause it was cheap and i used to love the incredible machine(i had to play it for part of a technology class in high school)

Awesome game, though even with the tutorial, confusing at times. Still, a definite buy.

TIM was ahead of its time, I had many fun evenings building stupid machines in that as a kid, and the limited scope seemed somehow less daunting that LBP. I can't make a f*cking platform game, but I'll gladly make a mouse fire a rocket up a cat's bottom and work at it until it's right.

I was just talking at work about the incredible machine at work yesterday - and behold!
just played the demo. Lot of fun.

I dunno about this. I don't want to do down a fringe buster, and I'm glad someone's carrying the torch for the Heath Robinson contraption genre, but I was just irritated by the demo. Maybe this is because I've played The Incredible Machine and hoped it'd be nearly the same.

First the tutorial. So to progress, I have to do exactly as the professor says and put the brick on the smiley face. Well ahead of you there, Prof. I rotate it neatly and drop it snugly in its hole. He stares at me with indifference. OK, so I put it on the face. Now he tells me I've done it wrong and I have to rotate it. I ALREADY ROTATED IT JACKASS. I immediately lose faith at this, being smart has proved to be a hindrance - it smacks of no play testing and this is illustrated by my feelings over the first few levels in chapter 1.

It's tough to explain but this game is laughing at me. Laughing at my futile attempts to get a push pin to lie on its side instead of pointing upwards, laughing at me trying to figure out where these great bendy ramps are supposed to go given that I can't rotate them or flip them, laughing as it tells me I have to wipe out all my progress in a chapter if I accidentally solve the primary objective but fail the secondary and want to try again. Laughing in my face.

Maybe it's the sheer sterility of the environments and the way everything looks so damn accurate and meticulous that puts me off. I fear there will be no pedalling monkeys because, well, monkeys wouldn't pedal a exercise bike would they? That would be Crazy.

I feel bad for Crazy Machines II because it has its heart in the right place. The developer loved the games I loved as a kid and tried to do them justice with Aegia PhysX and 3D graphics, but I didn't love those games for the graphics or the physics. I loved those games because I could knock out a monkey with a bowling ball and blow a screaming upside-down cat off the screen with dynamite. I guess that's where we differ.

Oh and edit: "if you have a kid that wants to learn about physics" buy him/her Boom Blox, it has fun animals and happy music and no scary old professor.

I played The Incredible Machine a bunch in lower school along with using Hyper Studio. Going to give this demo a go. I have been loving these articles. Keep up the good work.

The demo just crashed my computer. I think it was ZoneAlarm which came up when the game starts. Alt-tab didn't work the first time, but it did after a reboot. If anyone has problems, that might be the cause.

So what programs other than the main one does this thing install? I saw it at least install the Ageia PhysX program, and I think one other is on my add/remove program list that wasn't there to begin with.

I'm in the boat with Insectecutor. Except, I just quit once I put everything in the right place on the 2nd tutorial and it just sat there and did nothing when I finished running the experiment.

As far as I can tell it just comes with the Aegia/nVidia PhysX libraries.

Insectecutor wrote:

As far as I can tell it just comes with the Aegia/nVidia PhysX libraries.

Ok, I think I just got paranoid after seeing the PhysX thing.

Of course, you would be the one to know and respond as it seems we both got fed up with the game for the same reason.

I had no problems. You can skip the tutorials I believe if you'd like.

I had moderate amounts of fun, but when it crashed for the second time I just left it alone. I would be interested to hear what people think. Its not nearly as pick up and play as I remember The Incredible Machines being.