Amazing little flash game for lovers of physics and design.

liveforphysics

liveforphysics

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Go to this site. You have to watch 20 seconds of a stupid advertisement, then you can hit "skip ad" and play.

http://www.fantasticcontraption.com/

This game is called fantastic contraption, it's an amazing and deeply thoughtful game that is quick and easy to learn and play.

Using all available part types to solve a puzzle isn't very hard, but it does give people a better understanding of physics, statics, dynamics, etc.

Once you get a better feel for the game, you can solve most every puzzle in 0-3 pieces, with just a couple taking 6 pieces.

Tonight at work, I just finished up beating all levels without using any of the "wheel" pieces, powered or unpowered. This requires some clever application of levers, because you've only got the blue and brown sticks to work with. This really took some effort for me on a few of the levels!

If you come up with an amazing design you wish to share, you can save it, and paste the link to your creation in this thread and we can all check it out. :)

I some of you enjoy this game as much as I have!

-Luke
 
I would like to add, that I think by beating this game in a difficult way, like with no wheels, or by going up over the huge land masses and things with each puzzle, etc, a better intutive understanding of kinematics is developed than by taking it at college. Unfortunately, it doesn't each you the skills to quantify anything beyond qualitative levels, which the college class does teach. The game is outstanding for development of the intuitive side of kenematics and design though. :)
 
Luke,

I have to agree. I found this with my daughter a few years ago, we spent many hours making up wall climbing contraptions. It is a great tool, fun time, for dynamic based thinkers...

Blessed Christmas-eve day to you and your family!
 
I'm stunned! I could actually do these and enjoy it at the same time. Maybe my Mech engineering professors were wrong "You should be a doctor, because they don't need as much math." Swear to god the truth!
otherDoc
 
I'm glad you're enjoying them real Doc :)

Once you've passed them all, try solving them all with no wheels. It's fun next step that gives total re-playability to the game. It's interesting how some of the simple levels become very complex, while others stay simple with or without wheels.

I'm now working on crazy contraptions to carry the piece up over or down under the huge floating land masses that you've gotta zoom out to even see in most levels. :) It's quite a challenge!
 
Great game but seems like I'm complicating things :mrgreen:

Picture3.png


I can't remember when I played a PC game the last time. Thanks for the link

Merry Christmas to all of you!
 
Awesome machine! Hit the "save" button (it looks like an old-school floppy disk), and share the link with us so we can watch that crazy machine in action. :)

The 4-balls level was one of the most difficult for me to solve using no wheels.
 
Here are a few no wheel designs I put together tonight, some are fun to watch. :)
I will keep adding to this through the night as I build more fun ones. :)
http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10016144

Over the green land :)
http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10016318

Simple method to be faster than the ball. :)
http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10016366

This one takes about a full minute of looking like a fail, then wins :) It's more like a miricle than an engineered win though. lol
http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10016371

I don't normally make little cars in this game, but since this one is setup with unbalanced wheels to explode into the air for the win, I figured it was good enough. :) I created it by mistake as part of a project to clear off all the blocks on the lower green level. lol

http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10016424

Here is a simple 2 piece win :) I've got a solution for most every puzzle now that require between zero to just a few pieces. :)
http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10016428
 
AussieJester said:
Faaaaark me Luke thats so freakin clever mate, i tried a few of the easier ones this morning over breakfast and that was hard enough then i see your efforts...i give up haha

KiM
Click to expand...


Thanks KiM :) I enjoy designing things :)
 
:)

nice game . draws a person in a little . this is the one that gave me some headache but i finally got it. but then ive been using everything they offer . not quite up to par enough to get by with just levers
http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10018329

) heres my up and over
http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10018566
 
Wow LFP! I just saw the one with no wheels. Way beyond me! My head hurtz!
otherDoc
 
I see they still haven't fixed the wheel glitches. :) Fun game. Here are a couple I did a while back:

http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=5168662#
http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=5168009#

I think this was my favorite but you have to have paid the $10 to see it:

http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=5215425
 
Here is simple looking, yet very tough to build no-wheels solution to 'up the hump'.

http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10020552

Doing it with wheels requires 3 pieces, and takes 15seconds or so to put together.

Doing it with no wheels takes a lot of work to get the spin down just right.



Here is the level "handling" completed using ONLY blue rods. :) No brown, no wheels etc. :) Though it looks complex, this one was actually very easy compared to the one above which looks simple, but took a ton of work.

http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10020612


Here is the level "4-balls" completed with no wheels. The hardest part was doing a mechanical timer, and getting it timed right so all the balls loaded before it lifted.

http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10020666
 
Wow, that 'four balls' contraption looks like it must have taken forever. Nice job!
 
what can i say i like wheels.
i found this one harder than all the rest. broke down and used wheels but its simple and fast :roll:
http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10024491#
 
great game! thanks for the link. I decided to use no wheels right from the start to make it more challenging. I made it to the junkyard level before I got stumped.

way too fun, feels like you really accomplished something when you hit the goal.

no hints! I'm afraid to even look at this thread now as I don't want to see any solutions :mrgreen:
 
I've solved all with only blue and brown rods now. It's not easy! I'm gona try to solve all with ONLY blue rods next, and I've all ready done about half of them with only blue. The problem is, I think the 4-balls level will be impossible with only blue rods unless I can come up with something extremely clever. :)
 
wow that is seriously impressive, I've only used the brown rods so far.

so much for getting any work done tomorrow, I've got a game to play :mrgreen:
 
Here is my solution to four balls

http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10105216

It uses wheels, but I thought it was pretty cool.
 
TPA said:
Here is my solution to four balls

http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10105216

It uses wheels, but I thought it was pretty cool.
Click to expand...

Great work! I like your timer design. :)
 
A different approach to Full Up:

http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=10146617
 
I found a similar game (perhaps a clone) a while back on the Johnson Controls website. Way too addicting.
 
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