Puzzles and laughter: We have already talked a few times about "Crazy Machines VR" by Fakt Software from Leipzig. reports. It is a fun puzzle game with 40 chain reaction levels from a total of five chapters. We have already had a close look at the VR puzzler and had a great time. However, you will need a lot of patience and time. But getting started and the controls are child's play. Therefore, the game is also suitable for a broad target group.
Haste but not delay
A first part of "Crazy Machines" appeared back then on 1 October 2005 on Steam. The reviews for the first 2D game were very positive. The developer studio has now fully trimmed the new edition for VR. As a player, you have the impression of interacting with the objects in the 3D environment yourself thanks to the touch control. However, the game principle is kept simple: You are always introduced to a scenario in which you have to move a baseball over several obstacles to reach the target. A mix of familiar and new manoeuvring tools is available from a large toolbox for each level.
The initial movement can be called up at the touch of a button. After that, your ingenuity is called for. Where to put the anvil? Where to put the giant toaster? And what's with the wind rim and the box? Once you have decided on a few objects, you can have them latched into the free slots one after the other in any order by releasing said gadgets on the spot. However, you can also move the auxiliary gadgets around at will without any time pressure.
Grumpy helper
If the pondering becomes too exhausting, there are two options: Either you let a part of the animation run in front of you by pressing the start button. Or you push the pieces in question into the scanner of the grumbling assistant robot. The robot then analyses the puzzle piece and can show you the exact location with a cone of light. But you will hear nasty remarks again and again. It's as if you had earned your professorship in Las Vegas.
Laughter is healthy
The endorphin-pouring reward is the amusing spectacle of solved chain reaction puzzles. Suddenly it becomes clear what happens when you have to manoeuvre a ball over a catapult toaster in front of a running windmill. Or to visualise the downward slope forces of a crossbeam as a master physicus, while daring animal experiments with laboratory pigs are attempted. Here, too, a VR show(er) game reveals itself in between, when all of a sudden the harmless test objects are roasted over a rotating Ferris wheel with neuronal electric shocks. An ode to the lemmings.
Fortunately, not only animal experiments are on the agenda, because sometimes your protagonist is very careless with his teleportation machines. The various backgrounds provide plenty of variety: From the desert landscape to Olympus, Area 51 to the space station, the amusing block tour is very extensive in content. Also good: The funny background music changes in a lively rhythm from level to level.
After the unparalleled mental strain, the joke factor of each level is also a main motivator. The quiet gameplay with its countless retries is always entertaining. But is this also a point of criticism? I would have liked to see an additional difficulty level, where there is either a timer for completing certain tasks or the grumbling assistant robot only has a limited time to choose from.
This can be somewhat addictive if you don't feel at home in quiet puzzle playgrounds. Achievements such as solving puzzles within a certain period of time could have been rewarded with gaudy points, which would certainly have put a bit of an "arcade crown" on the whole thing.
However, I do have one (real) point of criticism: Sometimes there are slight jerks during VR movements. Another criticism is that there are no advanced graphics settings to choose from. The contours of the objects could have been a little more polished, which occasionally causes some edge flicker.
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