How does it work!? Reviews

It doesn't.

I got this game on sale for 99 cents. I overpaid.

Cannot pass level 3, I don't know how to control this thing. Looks more like a school work of a 15-year old (or younger) student.

This is a puzzle game where the player has to assemble a contraption to meet the specific target. It's similar to The Incredible Machine, just that here you have modern visuals and some different features. This takes me back. The Incredible Machine (TIM) is a favorite game from my youth.

This is one of those games where the title is entirely appropriate-just not in the way the developers intended. You will find yourself yelling at the screen, "OKAY! HOW THE F__K DOES IT WORK???" Not because the puzzle is hard per se, but because there is ZERO explanation of how the various components work, leaving you to figure that out through trial and error. Here's a hint: holding down the 'ctrl' key is usually what you're looking for. The next HUGELY ANNOYING feature is that once a component is placed IT IS FORBIDDEN TO MOVE IT! Violators will be shipped off to a Gulag in Siberia where they are unaware that the USSR no longer exists. I'm kidding (I hope). It isn't forbidden, it's just impossible. Which means that, having spent ten minutes setting up an elaborate device and placing all the components you place the very last of 37 different parts-and discover it's just a bit shy of where it needs to be. Which means that, since it can't be moved, you have to START ALL THE F__K OVER AGAIN! AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, ad infinitum. This is a shame, 'cause otherwise it'd be a fun game.

In short: The game has little to offer, is a direct copy of a successful German game from 2005 and offers an outrageously inferior version for the same (original) price. In detail: The game looks like the first "Crazy Machines" game, release 2005 (germany) 2008 (steam/international) by FAKT Software and Viva Media. Many graphics are almost the same, the wall as background or even the blackboard in the menu screen. Even the UI structure in the level is identical. However, this is not a coincidence. The game menu has no volume control, so I had to do this through Windows Volume Manager. There the game window is called [i]Zarabotalo[/i]. hm ok. In Russian it's [i]Заработало[/i] and that happens to be EXACTLY the title the first "Crazy Machines" game was released in the Russian-speaking regions. I played the game anyway, and I noticed many things that are simply unattractive in terms of game design, and they certainly have a negative impact on the gameplay and gaming experience. In the original, the player was guided through the game by a character, new parts were explained, there was a learning curve. How does it work gives the player very little to go on, a few blue arrows and info about keyboard shortcuts. Extra frustration: These experimental games, especially in the more complex levels, require you to try something more often. Rotate the magnet a bit, move the spring a bit and so on. I tried several times to change things after stopping the experiment, but it never worked. So I had to restart the level every time to do that and so I had to place everything again after every try. The graphics were ok to good, I liked especially the 3D effects, gives the whole thing a very spatial feel. Many graphics - especially in the background and menu look a bit inconsistent, I guess the images like the brick wall are photos, with different brightness and mood than the graphics of the elements. Apparently the game does have VR support, at least SteamVR has launched, but I don't have a headset to test at the moment. Soundtrack was OK, for me personally too loud in relation to the other sounds - it's just annoying when there is no volume control, otherwise I would have liked to deactivate the music. The sounds are also ok, the engine sounds are for example about 2-3 seconds long and poorly looped, there is much room for improvement. I would like to write more positive things, because I really like the genre of these games and classic Rube Goldberg machines, but unfortunately the game really has little to offer. So I can't recommend the game to anyone in good conscience and the price is pretty outrageous. I don't mind if a game is inspired by another, on the opposite, competition boosts business and nowadays there are many copies (e.g. Battle Royale genre), but this game has the same name as the original, has taken over many styles 1:1, sure a different sprite but underneath it's a cheaply copied Crazy Machines. Then rather buy the good old Crazy Machines, costs the same, is older and offers much more.