Crazy Machines: The Wacky Contraptions Game

3.1 3.1 out of 5 stars | 173 ratings

Price: 13.99

Last update: 01-08-2025


About this item

Build imaginative machines in this creative and addictively fun brainteaser
Turn cranks, rotate gears, pull levers, and more to build unique contraptions
Solve more than 200 challenging puzzles; put your machines to work
Physics engine with air-pressure, electricity, gravity, and particle effects
Experiment with gears, robots, explosives, and more in your own virtual lab

Top reviews from the United States

  • M. Yeomans
    5.0 out of 5 stars Bring out the Mensa in your kid...
    Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2008
    I am a member of Mensa and I've been searching for years for software that would help teach my kids' problems-solving skills in an entertaining package. Crazy Machines is it. I ran across the game at random while searching through Amazon and bought it on a whim. I received it about a week ago and my kids, especially my 6-year old, have been bugging me ever since because we all want to play it.

    Don't get me wrong, the game isn't perfect but I've scored it a 5 out of 5 because the entertainment and educational value far overshadow any minor shortcomings.

    This game rocks. The learning curve is very short - within minutes we were solving puzzles. The puzzles vary from super simple (some virtually solve themselves) to very involved. One took me over an hour to solve - others just a minute or two. After a week of playing we have solved about a third of the total levels so playing time should is not an issue.

    My 6-year old can solve some of these by himself, maybe a quarter, but those he can't figure out by himself serve as an opportunity for me to teach him problem-solving skills. I give him clues that walk him toward the solutions but he is working it out for himself.

    Another interesting feature that he has already latched onto is the ability to build your own puzzles in the in-game lab called the "Sandbox". You can play with all of the game elements: fire, steam pipes, electrical, levers and catapults, balls and boxes and various gravity options. It's harder than it would seem to come up with an interesting puzzle that is challenging yet solvable.

    The graphics are superb - very sharp and pleasing. I am running this game on a new 22" monitor and it looks amazing. The background music is fine - you stop noticing it pretty quickly.

    Actually, the physics engine that drives this program is impressive. The items interact with each other in a manner that is very realistic and the game is supersensitive to even very minor movements and angle changes.

    A couple of cons...

    You can't skip a level. If you get stuck you can't move to any other level until you solve the puzzle. That is fine for me but it is a pain when the kids are playing.

    Of the 103 levels in the game there is no pattern of difficulty. You would expect there to be a general progression from easier to harder but it doesn't play out that way. Except that the first couple are easy, the difficulty from there on is random with some hardest levels coming relatively early. I wish the levels were ranked as to difficulty so you could sort by harder or easier levels at will. It is a pain when the kids get stuck.

    The "Professor" pops in every time you start a new level with some tired platitude like "this one was hard for even me to solve". The problem is that he only has two or three things to say and it gets old. If he said something different every time or if his statements bore some relationship to the actual difficulty of the level it wouldn't be so bad but it gets very annoying very quickly.

    Finally, unless there is something I've missed, the developers have missed a huge Web 2.0 opportunity when it comes to creating and sharinglevels. When you create a level in the Sandbox you can name and save it but there is no mechanism, within the game or at their web site, to upload, download or otherwise share levels. I can imagine this being bigger than the original game. Too bad.

    Overall, this game is great fun and a bargain at the price they are charging. Now if I could just find someone to trade levels with I'd really be happy.
  • Newton Malerman
    1.0 out of 5 stars No support for Mac
    Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2012
    This looks like a fun game with a really reasonable price. Problem is, on my iMac running 10.6.8, the game does not start! Even worse, my requests for help, on their website as suggested, and by email, go ignored. I printed the manual as suggested... no help. I went to their forums as suggested... they were in a language I don't understand. On one help page, someone complains about this issue, and is told to use a wired mouse... no help there, as I'm using a wired mouse. It seems that the hardest puzzle one must solve is how to start the program. The price may have looked reasonable, but I feel ripped off.
  • A. Solomon
    2.0 out of 5 stars crazy machines
    Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2008
    The concept of this game is good, but we found there is no help, clues, tips, or anything to get you started. My eight year old played four rounds before he got stuck. He isn't sure what to move on the game and there is nowhere he can get help. He hasn't played it since. It's a good game, but would be better if there were some type of instructions included.
  • Marjorie W. Dunaway
    4.0 out of 5 stars nice calm thinking game for kids and up
    Reviewed in the United States on March 9, 2009
    I agree documentation is limited but my boys 7 and 10, who aren't sophisticated gamers like it. I love it because of the calming music and requirement for thoughtful play. I much prefer it to the addictive high paced fast music action games that are more common. Kids and adults can learn and think through processes with this game. My kids come away much more calm than if they have an action game. And its not violent like too many games now available. It works well on Macs. Modest price. We've had ours for about 2 months and there's always new challenges.
    Thanks
  • bobodobo
    3.0 out of 5 stars Fun game, but runs very poorly on Macs
    Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2006
    I have a fairly new Intel iMac and an older G4 Powerbook, and I was looking for games for my mechanically-inclined 5 year old son that would run on Macs. The game does run on both the Intel and G4 Mac, but crashes frequently - one learns to save "inventions" constantly to avoid losing a masterpiece. Also, the sound frequently stops and can't be restored unless you exit and restart the program. And, if that weren't enough, it becomes unbearably slow when you have more than 20 - 30 elements in your "inventions." I also have Parallels for the iMac which allows me to run Windows programs. The PC version would install but refused to run at all in Parallels. Needless to say, it's a very frustrating program, at least for Mac users. From these reviews it appears that some even some "real" PC/Windows users have similar problems. Apart from the Mac problems, the other weakness of the program is that there is very little help available and the (tiny) printed and electronic manuals are not particularly helpful, and there isn't much in the way of "getting started" or "hints." On the other hand, this is supposed to be a "figure it out yourself" type of game, so that's not a major problem.

    Having said all that, the game itself is a blast, and my son loves building contraptions with building blocks of electricity (batteries, motors, generators, switches, etc.), fire, light, steam, bouncing balls, explosives, etc. (Think "Rube Goldberg" if that term means anything to you.) I see some resemblance to "real" contraptions I built (with considerably more risk...) as a youngster. The games are challenging, perhaps too challenging, even for adults. And it's technically accurate - for example, in a daisy-chain of light-bulbs and solar panels, each successive light in the chain will be dimmer than the previous one due to losses in transmission. For those to whom it matters, the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics are not violated. (Suggestion to the authors: create a sequel program that allows one to build moving vehicles and obstacle courses based on these building blocks.)

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