Tagged: physics

LittleBigPlanet is now one week away. One week further away than originally intended, unfortunately. Passing the time from now until then doesn’t have to be a total loss, fortunately. If you’ve never played it yet, Fantastic Contraption (FC) is a wonderful way to pass the time. FC is a free web browser game. Like most free games of this nature, it’s very simple, at least at first glance. The goal is to move an object, a red ball or square, from one area to another. How you get it to move is entirely up to your imagination.

You’re given a small area to build in. Within that area, you can use a limited set of tools to build. Various rods and wheels can be bound together in just a few ways. At first, it doesn’t seem like there’s much to it, and indeed for the first few levels, you can complete the challenges with very rudimentary contraptions, such as a rotating wheel that simply drags the red ball over to the goal. It doesn’t take long for the game to get very tricky, so don’t get too proud of yourself. Some levels will seem to be impossible at first. You could very well end up spending a whole day just trying to get past one level.

Despite the challenge, the game is incredibly fun. There’s virtually no limit to how many pieces you can string together. It doesn’t take long to realize you can build catapults, tanks, elaborate machines, and anything else your mind can conjure up. The game has the effect of taking you back to your childhood, where you could turn a few Lego blocks into just about anything your imagination wanted them to be.

There are only 21 levels to the game. If you want more, or the ability to create more, the creator only asks for $10. Even without paying, there’s nearly limitless appeal to the game. Once you’ve wrapped your head around a level and moved on to the next, you can go back and look at all of the creations other players built to get past that challenge. Some of the solutions other people have come up with are ridiculous and insanely complex, others are so simple that you’ll laugh at their efficiency.

All in all, Fantastic Contraption is a perfect gateway for LittleBigPlanet. FC helps unlock the creative juices of our inner-mechanics and helps us come up with new, sometimes bizarre, methods to overcome simple problems. I can’t wait to apply what I’ve learned from this game to LittleBigPlanet. Check on the image below to see one of the solutions I came up with to get the red ball across a gap. Keep in mind that you can not build anything outside of the blue zone.

As soon as the machine starts, the pink wheel rotates counter-clockwise, while the vertical plank on the right side falls to the forces of gravity. The rods attached to the pink wheel eventually strike the red ball, causing it to shoot up the descending drawbridge. The bridge finally falls into place, conveniently covering up the gap. The red ball continues due to its momentum and rolls into the Goal zone. This is just one solution; there are an infinite number of ways this level could be completed.