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The Incredible Machine

205 points| doppp | 7 years ago |filfre.net | reply

48 comments

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[+] deckarep|7 years ago|reply
I loved Sierra’s games: it was my gateway into the world of computers and was my inspiration for being a software engineer. I still have all my Sierra games, original boxes, documentation, and disks.

I also have a few—around 24 issues of InterAction magazine.

Incredible Machine was different than most other of Sierra’s point n click adventures but still inspired nonetheless.

My plan at one point was to move to Coursegold California and contribute to building the next Sierra adventure...

Oh well...I’m older now, and just hack on distributed systems...but thank you Sierra for allowing me to be inspired and intrigued of what it means to create...

Okay I’m getting cheesy now...

[+] ido|7 years ago|reply
please keep in mind sierra was "just" the publisher for a lot (most?) of these games, such as the one in question (TIM) which were actually developed by other game studios.
[+] megaman22|7 years ago|reply
Sierra was just so great, particularly their Impressions Games group. Lords of the Realm, Civil War Generals, Caesar, the Dr Brain games

Sierra even published Half-Life

[+] stared|7 years ago|reply
And it still inspires! A year ago I released (open source) "Quantum Game with Photons": http://quantumgame.io/.

I pretty much make it explicit:

"Wave optics and quantum mechanics as a game. Play for fun! Learn quantum mechanics as a side effect. It’s a puzzle game, heavily inspired by The Incredible Machine and Chromatron."

[+] IIAOPSW|7 years ago|reply
Hey I've played that before!

I really liked it. Great game. Thanks for making it and sharing it with the world.

[+] k__|7 years ago|reply
I found TIM and TIM2 in 1996 on a compilation CD. First I was after Warcraft, Command and Conquer and Dune, but when you don't have an Internet connection or money to buy games, you try out every last game on every CD you find :D

It was basically the Minecraft of that time. I played this game in sandbox mode only, didn't even realize it had a puzzle mode, because I didn't speak English at that time.

[+] smsm42|7 years ago|reply
TIM was one of my favorite games of all time. One of the nicest features of it is that for more complex puzzles, there were so many different ways of achieving the result, sometimes in very strange and peculiar ways. Most games at the time did not allow such freedom to the player.
[+] goda90|7 years ago|reply
As a child I played a lot of the "toon" version they came out with. I wonder if that helped foster my love of programming now.
[+] gjsman|7 years ago|reply
The modern, truly amazing unofficial "remake" of this game would be <strong>Crazy Machines 3</strong>. http://www.crazy-machines.com/

Crazy Machines started in 2004 with the same idea as the Incredible Machine, but the company behind it never disappeared and just kept going and going...

[+] dsnuh|7 years ago|reply
The makers have a new game called Contraption Maker, which I have yet to download, as I feared it will consume me like TIM series did when I was growing up. These are some of my favorite games of all time.
[+] BalinKing|7 years ago|reply
After just learning about Contraption Maker from the comments here, I couldn't stop myself from buying it.... So far, I'm pleasantly surprised – it's close enough to TIM that I'm happy! So, maybe being stronger than I was and holding off instead is a good idea ;)
[+] megaman22|7 years ago|reply
Quite possibly my favorite game ever, except one of the last levels stumped me. Sierra had a hell of a run for a while as a producer in the 90s.

Now I'm going to have to go see if I can find it on gog or the few abandonware sites that still exist

[+] gboudrias|7 years ago|reply
> One need only glance at a screenshot to be reminded of the old children’s board game cum toy Mouse Trap, a simplistic exercise in roll-and-move whose real appeal is the elaborate

Either I'm very tired or someone made a horrible typo.

[+] etatoby|7 years ago|reply
The article's use of the term "erector set" had me similarly puzzled.
[+] ppkao|7 years ago|reply
The Incredible Machine was my favorite game growing up! My indie studio is currently developing a similar chain reaction game called Ruberg but for VR: http://rubergthegame.com/
[+] jmartrican|7 years ago|reply
Just another "this is one of my favorite games growing up" post that have popped up here. This is one of my favorite games growing up.

The version I owned had over 100 puzzles. After beating them all, to this day, I lost the will to play any other similar puzzle games. I have this feeling of, been there to Nth degree. Some puzzles were very hard and took many tries.

[+] Fnoord|7 years ago|reply
We had to play this game during math class (at age 12, approx '95), no joke. Think it was like 2 lessons of 50 min each. Some people weren't familiar with DOS. The first 5 min of the class was getting the game running.

I was already familiar with games such as Lemmings though. Puzzle games are great for children. I'd love a more recent Steam port for my kid.

[+] qwerty456127|7 years ago|reply
This was the most mind-blowing game I've ever seen, no other has ever made a more strong first impression.
[+] tluyben2|7 years ago|reply
This game I loved and played a lot. I liked puzzle games more than most other genres besides horizontal shmups and I played a lot of them since the early 80s; this one stood out. I am reimplementing several other old ones to get back into game dev (with the Godot engine).
[+] MisterTea|7 years ago|reply
Wow, I remember playing Creative Contraptions on our Franklin Ace 1200. I also loved the game mouse trap and had more fun playing with the contraptions than the board game itself. I also later on bought the incredible machine for windows. Good stuff.
[+] akurilin|7 years ago|reply
Was fortunate to meet Jeff Tunnell a few years back at PAX West, shockingly humble guy for someone whose work was a huge part of my childhood. It was inspiring to see someone stick to that indie development mindset after all those years.