Yes, it’s a classic. 14 million players, 13 million shared contraptions and 70 thousand user-created levels over the last 12 years. It’s been used in schools and has inspired folks to become engineers and game developers. After its initial release in 2008, there was a mobile version (retired), a sequel, a spinoff (unreleased), a spiritual successor (also unreleased), another spiritual successor (Incredipede), and a 2016 VR evolution.

The game’s lesser-known Flash sequel was made in partnership with InXile Entertainment’s Flash wing Sparkworkz. You can still play a free version of it on Kongregate.com, though the online features are long since broken.

It features magnets, moving levels and challenge modes like green (no powered wheels) and clean (all pieces must end off the screen). It’s included as a bonus with Fantastic Contraption classic!

When I started the PC port, I was surprised to find the Fantastic Contraption community still active despite our near-total neglect.

The new discord server is hopping with friends sharing custom levels, organizing challenges, and modding the game. Their enthusiasm turned what was going to be a quick and dirty job into a more caring update, as they helped me add some new features and fix things that had been broken for a long time.

I’m thankful solutions are ranked since there were a million to choose from for this trailer.

Flash had a big impact on our lives and on the game industry, and though it’s been effectively dead for years, it’s still sad to see it officially go. Check out this excellent visual article by Jonas Richner for more about this important medium.

Chris Floyd from Radial Games here, with an exciting message from our giant videogame zeppelin flying high overhead. We’ve been working day and night to create a most exquisite and whimsical virtual reality morsel: Fantastic Contraption for PlayStation VR!

Release Date

That’s right! We’ve been having a blast creating Fantastic Contraption for PlayStation VR, and we’re excited to announce that we’ll be sharing all of our hard work with you on Tuesday, July 11th, 2017. National Fantastic Contraption Day, mark it in your calendar! It will retail for $19.99 usd with an extra launch-week-special 10%-off if you have PlayStation Plus.

Seated Gameplay Specifically Designed for PS VR – The Most Relaxing Way to Play FC!

Sure, you could stand around, windmilling your arms in our magical virtual reality wonderland, but now you have the choice to sit back and play Fantastic Contraption right from your couch! Imagine! We redesigned the gameplay experience especially for PS VR, taking advantage of the likelihood that you have a favorite place to relax in front of your PlayStation 4. We’ve included special PS VR-only features that allow you to resize and position your gameworld at the press of a button, which we’re sure you’ll find slick and amazing.

It has fast become my favorite way to play, and makes contraption-building feel a whole lot like model-making, which we are Very Big Fans of here at Radial Games.

New, Unique Levels for PlayStation VR

We have a handful of brand-new, PlayStation-exclusive levels in the release. Try your hand bouncing around some moguls, attacking a big-bricked wall, and more! We’ve designed a few challenges specifically around seated play, and we know you’ll enjoy them.

Dynamically Resize the Entire World in the Brand-New Resize Island

Welcome to Resize Island, where you can dynamically resize the entire world around you! This opens a world of customization for your preferred way to play. You can make the world really huge to fit your standing-style gameplay preferences, or shrink it all the way down to fit on your lap, where you can marvel at tiny Neko. That’s right, THE CAT RESIZES TOO. You can do anything in videogames.

PS4 Pro Enhancements

For those of you with a lovely new PS4 Pro, we’ve spiced up the game a bit extra for ya:

• 8xAA – We averaged out all those sharp corners for smoother looking curves!
• Higher-resolution textures – you can almost smell that wood-grain!
• Improved backdrops and scenery
• Additional special-effects and visual flairs
• Extra island decorations
• 125% resolution oversampling – A fancy way of saying that things look real sharp in there.

Let us know below what you’re most looking forward to, and I hope to see you having a great time with Fantastic Contraption when it launches next Tuesday!

But why “Anti-Oppenheimer”? Because:

“Now I am become Editor, the creator of worlds”

Now you too can defy – nay, define – physics as the creator of your own Fantastic Contraption levels using the new built-in Level Editor. To get started, first put on the helmet to enter dark world, then look for a mask above a statue of a two-toed sloth. Don the mask to enter:

The Level Editor

As Andy Moore says in the video above, we think the level editor is a key piece to the Contraption experience. The original 2008 Flash game had 47 official levels, and half a million user-generated ones. Not only did player-made levels give the game more content, they let people come up with whole new ways of playing that we hadn’t even considered.

To be honest, the level editor’s practically a game in itself. Move aside TiltBrush, it’s time for art class with Mrs. Fox:

Next we’ll recreates a cartoonish prison stereotype using dynamic blocks (aka “moon cheese”):

The Sarahfox

Ring the bell to summon the Sarahfox, your tutorial guide to the Level Editor (voiced and acted by yours truly!). She’ll introduce the basic controls: grabbing, stretching, copying, and using the precision movement flowers.

We recorded the Sarahfox’s movement using a system we wrote into the game, so she can interact with pre-scripted objects and give a demonstration right front of you. It’s remarkable how much life a character can have in VR using only 3 points of motion capture data.

Switch the Dog

You’ll meet Button the Dog’s cousin Switch when you first arrive in the Level Editor. Use him to toggle between Build Scale (where it’s easier to reach the whole level) and Test Scale (where it’s easier to playtest). There are no functional differences between the two modes, so you can edit level pieces and build contraptions in both and it’s a cinch to test on the fly:

Contraption pieces will be saved along with the level terrain, so make sure to delete them when you’re done testing, unless you want to include them as a challenge or example to people who play your level. It’s also possible to save levels that don’t have a goal or are missing a goal ball. We recommend testing before you save!

If you save a level you made to any shelf on the save table, it will be published online. To delete your saved level or contraption, throw it into the Trashcan Frog’s mouth.

Lippy the Mouthmoth Keyboard

Grab Lippy or double-tap the trigger to call him down to you in the dark world. Move him over to the maquette minimap to name your contraption or level (if no name is set, a random one will be chosen when you publish online).

You can also move Lippy to the save table to filter it by contraption or level name. For example searching for “mi” will find things named Steep Mitten or Miserly Devil.

Infinite Levels

We’ve seeded the user-made levels with some we designed that didn’t make the official cut, or that we’ve been inspired to create since trying out the new editor (which is much easier to use than our old system!). To check them out, enter the dark world and set the save table’s mode lever (the one on the right) to Levels, then use the left lever to select Levels by Rating or Levels by Date.

Don’t forget you can favorite user-made levels (or contraptions) by giving them a kiss. This feeds into the online ranking for the Levels by Rating shelf.

Zumi the Moon Mouse

Zumi Mouse didn’t live in a house, he wanted to live on the moon!
As the world cat passed by, he rode up to the sky,
And round his head put a balloon.
He munched and he chewed, ’till the cheese moon was hewed,
And Zumi had plenty of holes he’d accrued.
But what a mistake – such a bad bellyache,
Zumi’s home is his favorite food!

Full Changelog

We don’t have any more major updates planned for Fantastic Contraption, though we’ll continue to maintain the game and support new hardware (the PS VR version is coming soon!). Radial Games and Northway Games will be moving on to new (and so far unannounced) things next.

• New Level editor! To use it, first put on the helmet, then put on the creepy mask in the corner and ring the bell for a tutorial. User-made levels can be shared online and loaded via the save table just like contraptions.
• New Mouthmoth keyboard lets you name contraptions and levels, and search by contraption / level name
• Added interactive art elements to side of maquette and Kaiju scale
• Autohide the companion desktop menu and limit desktop display framerate
• Show purple building bounds if cheating detected during tutorial
• Hide black sphere during startup
• Improve look of pins on Neko’s head
• Adjust some sky characters
• Sky color variation
• Sounds for items including non-spinning green wheels and eyeballs
• Disable musical sounds if you’re holding an item
• Tweaked throw force for Kaiju scales
• Improved haptics
• Improved tutorial text font
• Optimized first person companion view smoothing
• Optimized avatar shadows
• Optimized Twitch panel memory usage
• Fixed some menus not updating when language changes
• Fixed models disappearing after you drop them on a save table shelf
• Fixed Button the Dog ghosting
• Fixed disappearing Neko eyes and ghosting
• Fixed obscure crash bug with some webcams
• Fixed cat skin modding
• Fixed sticky tutorial messages
• Fixed laserpointer positioning for Twitch/camera menu
• Fixed feedback form submission issues

Cheers and happy 2017 from the Fantastic Contraption team!

Kert Gartner used some wacky techniques to film this and our Oculus Rift trailer, and today he shared some of the cinema techniques he used to get shots you usually only see in movies or tailored cutscenes. He also filmed gameplay footage in 4k split screen so he could get 1st person and 3rd person shots with both the Oculus Touch and Playstation Move controllers all at the same time.

We’re working hard to bring the best experience possible to this console version and so far the results look great! Stay tuned for more news…