Contraption Maker comes with a puzzle creation mode that's as easy to use as the game is to play. Everything is drag and drop, from the scenery options to the game board itself. Tinker and build whatever you like, then upload your creation to the community so everyone else can scratch their heads. At the time of writing there are just over 550 user stages to check out, ranging from simple to insane to that one that's like a game of billiards. You might be surprised to learn that most of the user puzzles are genuinely entertaining. This is a community that takes its contraption making seriously!
Contraption Maker's co-op mode is essentially a multiplayer building room with a chat box. As many as eight players can join in to help turn ordinary machines into incredible ones. If you want to actually get anything done, you'll need to master the art of communication. Public rooms can sometimes turn into the old saying of too many cooks spoiling the broth. It usually isn't as chaotic as it sounds, and thankfully trolls seem to be relatively uncommon. People usually get a sense of what others are trying to accomplish and slowly merge their pieces of the puzzle to contribute to the final goal.
Public rooms seem to be rare in the Contraption Maker world, but it's just as well since co-op is so much more fulfilling when you can play with a friend. The game offers easy options to restrict rooms to a certain number of players or to toggle between public and private. The good news is that a single purchase of Contraption Maker comes with two copies of the game: one for you, and one for your old sandbox buddy in kindergarten.
Most puzzles in video games are of the missing pieces variety. You know you need to open that door, but you're just not sure how. Button on the wall? Up up down down left right left right B A? Once you figure out how, the rest is basically just going through the motions. With Contraption Maker, you have all the pieces but you don't know how they fit together. Solving these is normally called guesswork or trial and error, but those phrases carry a negative connotation to them. It's more like experimentation in Contraption Maker. The objective is simple but the methods are abstract. At least, that's how they seem at first. The more time you spend with the game, the more you start to recognize patterns to how the puzzles are built. The challenge doesn't go away with familiarity, it just mutates into something less overwhelming and more whimsical.
Contraption Maker is one of those games that's not going to appeal to everyone. It's more of a creativity tool than a game in the traditional sense. It's a very loose experience that sets you free with a toybox full of stuff so you can play until you're bored. The tool itself is very well made and is accessible to all types of gamers, young and old. It's come a long way since its early access release in 2013, but now it's ready for you and your friends to unleash some incredible amounts of creativity.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Up to eight players collaborate in public or private building rooms.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.