Crazy Machines 3, which is developed by Fakt Software and published by Daedalic Entertainment, is the latest game in the Crazy Machines series which already includes 6 games and ten DLCs.
Crazy Machines 3 is an essentially physics-based puzzle game. The game offers us 80 levels divided into 12 categories, themselves divided into 5 levels of difficulty.
The first levels serve as a tutorial and are extremely simple and quick to complete. Most of the time, it will suffice to just place one or two objects in a fairly clearly recognizable place and launch the puzzle to see it solved. For example, having a simple domino and seeing a space in a row of dominoes on the puzzle.
But later, the levels will become more and more complex and as we advance in the categories, we discover new mechanics and new objects / instruments that will be incorporated into the puzzles and can be combine with those we have discovered previously.
It will often be necessary to combine several of these mechanisms to solve puzzles which will, of course, be more and more difficult. While the first levels only use basic physics (an object pushed into a vacuum will fall.), We will subsequently find weightlessness, inversion of gravity, lasers, light, electricity, wind , magnets, etc. making the puzzles really complex to perform.
To carry out the puzzles, we have at our disposal several well-defined objects for each of them. The objects are very varied and the game has a little over 200 of them. There are, for example, timers that can delay the start of an electrical device. Or even fans, "fists" that allow you to push an object as soon as they are activated, lasers and laser receivers that can activate an object connected to it as soon as a laser hits it. There are also more classic and basic objects, such as a simple domino, a wooden board, a crate, gears and so on. But also less "common" objects, such as glass cubes, reflecting laser rays in various and varied directions, sticks of dynamite, coils which generate an electric arc, attracting any metallic object, remote-controlled cars, rockets, teapots, etc.
The difficulty and complexity of the levels is therefore increasing gradually. However, the strength of the game does not come from the 80 basic levels, which will occupy us only 3-4 hours, but from the workshop. Indeed, the game has its own level editor, extremely easy to access, and which allows everyone to create their levels and then share them on the Steam workshop. At the time of writing, the game has been released for a little less than a week and we can already find a little over 180 levels created by the community. These are very easily (and quickly) recoverable by going directly into the game. It is therefore not necessary, as with many games, to quit the latter, download the level and restart the game. Everything is done automatically via the page home page of the game. We even find the “latest creations of the community” on the home page.
In addition to the levels, the game also allows you to create your own objects, adding even more possibilities and playability than what is present at the base in the game! And that promises many more hours of play.
And fortunately there is the creator of level and objects, because, unfortunately, the proposed “basic” levels are quite simple once you understand what to do. Indeed, the level gives us, by itself, all the objects to use in it and in the end, there are few levels that can be achieved in several ways. All the items provided are to be used and have, in plain language, only one and only one possible location and the game “blocks” the other possibilities. For example, if you have several gears of different sizes to achieve the level, you can only place them in a specific place so that they all fit together and activate the mechanism. If you don't put the right gear in the right place, either it doesn't activate the mechanism (however you go about it) or you can't start solving the puzzle, because the game will indicate that an object cannot be placed there. This is a bit, personally, the black point that I remember from the game. Already the levels, even the last ones, are relatively easy to achieve once we understand what to do, the fact that there is hardly any way to achieve the level other than that intended by the developers, break the trick a bit. This is even more obvious in the levels where the resolution depends on a placement up to the square.
Apart from that, and although it is absolutely not an important point in a game of this genre, the graphics are beautiful and the effects of lights / blast / dust / explosion are very well done. On the soundtrack side, this will not mark absolutely anyone, the game having a soundtrack of elevator music. Personally, I cut the music from the game in order to put mine in the background because the music is so anecdotal. But then again, as with the graphics and even if it has the merit of being present, the music is really not the interest of this kind of game.
Conclusion
I really like puzzle and riddle games and Crazy Machine 3 is very interesting at this level. The game will not score in its difficulty unless you look to community creations. The basic missions of the game finally make more think of a huge tutorial for the creations of the players. However, if you like puzzle games, I recommend it.
- Lots of items present in the game.
- Combination of objects / mechanisms / enormous possibilities.
- The workshop and the level / object editor omnipresent in the game.
- Most of the levels only have one possible resolution.
- Useless soundtrack, even if it has the merit of being present.
