Contraption Maker Reinvents The Incredible Machine For Steam Gamers

Spotkin Games let loose a new video oh-so-recently to talk about their new title Contraption Maker. The new game is the spiritual successor of The Incredible Machine, and it's being headed up Jeff Tunnell, the exact same mind who was also the creative design director for the original The Incredible Machine.

It's pretty amazing because Tunnell, in the video, runs through a list of classic games from the 90s that hit me with a flood of nostalgia. Oh boy, Red Baron? Loved it. Tribes? Are you kidding me?! Trophy Bass? It was actually the only fishing game I played (and also because it came bundled with some other Sierra games, so that's not really fair). Aces Over Pacific? Oh heck yes!

I can't believe I forgot about Dynamics, but they were one of the reliable studios back during the Golden Age that consistently and continually pumped out high-quality games. Of course, if gamers went back and tried playing some of those older titles you would probably puke in disgust, but back in the day they were awesome... including one of the more underrated titles in the library, The Incredible Machine.

Spotkin is hoping to rekindle that same love for all things Rube Goldberg, where brain-fishing for a complex set of functions to complete a simple task. The video covers the team's desire to bring back that old brain teasing puzzle genre while incorporating a lot of new-school mechanics.

The graphics have been suitably upgraded for today's standards and the complexity of the machines and the puzzles have been upgraded ten-fold (or maybe even a hundred-fold). But the main thing is that everything associated with the puzzle-contraption sub-genre has been hit with the upgrade-stick... including user generated content.

Yes, if you thought that creating cool contraptions, machines and solving puzzles that makes you feel like you've gained a few I.Q., points at the end of it all isn't enough. Spotkin took the extra effort to incorporate the tools to allow for Steam Workshop integration. You can create new backdrops, audio cues, sounds and other assets. This definitely feeds the community a reason to keep playing the game and establish a long digital shelf-life for the title.

Contraption Maker may not have been circulating throughout the video game media circles as well as it should (and it's a shame we didn't spot this one sooner) but beginning tomorrow you'll be able to gain early-access to the game on Steam.

It's nice to see these kind of original games make a resurgence in the game space, and I'm beginning to believe that perhaps EA was right when they said that a new Golden Age is upon us... it just won't be happening on the AAA front.

You can learn more about Contraption Maker by paying a visit to the game's official website.