The Even More Incredible Machine

Catch a ball and let it loose into a world full of pipes, marbles, and traps. The Even More Incredible Machine is an expansion of the legendary series where you want to build a path from point A to point B, only to sabotage it yourself with a poorly placed piece. It started simple, but over time it became a common pastime that devours hours.

It's a Rube Goldberg simulator in pretty pure form. You have a canvas, you have an arsenal – tracks, contraptions, magnets, balls and everything else that fits the logic of physics, which is built quite sophisticatedly for 1993. The task sounds promising: get the ball to the goal so that the path is as long, as bizarre, as strange as possible. Actually, the path won't be the shortest – it'll be the most fun.

The system works as expected. You click, drag, place pieces, rotate them, adjust them. The physics are convincing, the graphics have that arcade clarity of the time – nothing special, but it works. Sounds bang, whistle, click. When your ball reaches the goal, you feel satisfaction – and most of all you want to play the next round right away. Each level is a puzzle with more than one solution, if you have imagination. Or expression.

This title could have been a flop – sequels never work out. But here the creators didn't hesitate to add dozens of new pieces, a better editor, more game modes. The result is neither stronger nor weaker than the original – it's the same game, just more comprehensive. If it clicked with you the first time, you'll get lost in it the second time too. If you didn't like it at all, well, you might understand that it's hard work without a payoff.

Playing it today means diving into a world without graphical gimmicks and without the comfort industry. All that awaits you is pure physics, your brain, and sometimes frustration when the ball rolls somewhere completely different than you wanted. But that's exactly what matters – there's no artificial intelligence to help you or think for you. There's just you and the machine.