The Incredible Machine (series)

The Incredible Machine (series) is a puzzle-solving video game series. It was originally designed by Kevin Ryan and produced by Jeff Tunnell, and his company, now defunct, Jeff Tunnell Productions, and published by Dynamix. Although the early titles (1993-1995) shared the same designers, the versions created later on (2000-2001) had a different set of designers.

Gameplay
As far as the gameplay goes, it is a puzzle-solving game. Player has to insert a limited inventory of parts into correct locations and orientate them correctly to finish a Rube Goldberg machine. Each time a player starts a level, he is given a goal about that what should the Rube Goldberg machine perform. The task is usually simple (such as put the ball in a bucket, launch the rocket, light the candle), but it is more complicated than it sounds.

Although not in the very first games, the later games added hints. The physics are not random and will function the same every time an exactly same machine is run. Along a mission mode (where the player must finish Rube Goldberg machines), there is a freeform mode with infinite parts (although the total amount of parts is limited) and a free playfield. Later games allowed freeform mode to add goals and make them into full tasks ready for mission mode.

Games
There are several games released for lots of different platforms. Here is the list of them:


 * The Incredible Machine (1992 for MS-DOS, Mac and 3DO)
 * The Even More Incredible Machine (1993 for MS-DOS, Windows, Mac)
 * Sid & Al's Incredible Toons (1993 for MS-DOS)
 * The Incredible Toon Machine (1994 for Windows, Mac)
 * The Incredible Machine 2 (1994 for MS-DOS)
 * The Incredible Machine 3 (1995 for Windows, Mac)
 * Return of the Incredible Machine: Contraptions (2000 for Windows, Mac)
 * The Incredible Machine: Even More Contraptions (2001 for Windows, Mac)
 * The Incredible Machine (2011 for iOS)

Often, the game's designers have been criticized for recycling the same content from The Incredible Machine 2, rather than making additions.