Just bringing this to the front to remind me to sort out a promise I made to Spodo. you must forgive my lax attitude Spodo Commodo, I'm usually have a misty veil over my head due to the opiates and my memory is appalling, though I usually do complete prmises (usually after a few reminders). I've just reinstalled CM2 so will have the dll you needed ready for you. Please remind me what your Email is via the PM system. aAll my old PM's have gone since the change over. I would like to get the dll to you ASAP as I feel bad that its taken so long to sort. SORRY

Regards

Whiterabbit

Thanks for all the info on Crazy Machines Whiterabbit. I think I'll stick to your freeware suggestions. Because the "Buy" links in the game's demo lead nowhere suggesting that maybe the game is slowly on the road to becoming freeware/abandonware. I'd hate to buy something and find out a few months later its free now, lol.

I'll try and sort it this weekend, but no promises. :)

regards

Whiterabbit

p.s.

If you go to the Games Synopsis you'll find three excellent pre-cursors to Crazy Machines Called Incredible Machines, Incredible Machines 2 and even more Incredible machines. all three are free always. the graphics may be retro, but the game play is basically the same. Well worth a download if you like this genre of games.

Incredible Machines I:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/3941#post-42376

Incredible Machines 2, Even more Incredible Machines and Gear Works:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/4495#post-48051

Thers also another game called Gear Works that you may like that's available for free via the link above

You can get the first Crazy Machines game from Big Fish for $6.99 and Crazy Machines 1.5 is available from Steam for slightly more (I think about $20). you'll also find Crazy Machines 2 plus the addon to Crazy Machines 2 (which wasn't icluded with the free version). I don't understand why Big Fish Games don't get the later versions of Crazy Machines unless it's the cost.

Big Fish Games - Crazy Machines I

http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/3624/crazy-machines-game/index.html

Crazy Machines 1.5 on Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/18430/

Finally there's another game I've been playing for a while that's also similar to Crazy Machines called Armadillo Run. It costs $19.99, but I think it's well worth it. It doesn't have the polish of Crazy Machines (partly because the contraptions you try to solve have a blank (white) background, wheras Crazy Machines is set within an environment. Also you get to use more visually stimulating objects in Crazy Machines than in Armadillo run. I'd say Armadillo Run is a cross between Crazy Machines and a Bridge Building game. (there's a very basic freeware game that you can find in the games synopsis that involves bridge building):

Bridge Building

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/5687#post-59652

p.s.

I found my comment about Chain Reaction via one of the links above. there was a link to Garage games demo version of the game, but it seems they have stopped marketing it. It would be interesting to find out whether it has become freeware/abandonware.

http://www.armadillorun.com/

Not a problem Mr. W

Hi Spodo, sorry about the delay, totally forgot about my promise. I've made a note to remiond me this coming week.

Regards

WR

Hi Chip, The garage game version of Chain Reaction was the one that got me interested in this type of puzzle. I bought it about three years ago and still return to it. It comes with an editor so that you can create your own levels and I think you can download custom made levels from the Garage forums. I love the 3D aspect of the game.

here's a link to their forums:

http://www.garagegames.com/community/forums/42/all/8

Another more recent game called Bad Rats: The Rats Revenge can be purchased from Steam for around $5. It's a bit gory and cat lovers will probably be up in arms about the violence towards cats, but seeing through the viloent nature of the game, the actual puzzles are quite good.

No, if you download and check out the demo I provided you'll see what I'm talking about. I can't find the full version anywhere. It consists of guiding a little monster to the finish using a chain reaction you build.

Start a reaction with this captivating puzzle game where you create elaborate contraptions to blast MC Monster onto his landing pad. Choose from a toybox full of sixty-nine 3D parts such as a conveyor belt, basketball, bucket, trampoline, or electric motor. Connect them with structural parts like pipes, ropes, boxes, and platforms to create mind-boggling contraptions. Move these parts around on the screen to build an interactive machine you think will move MC onto his pad. Now press the START button and watch the fun begin! Imagine the ball rolling down the ramp, dropping onto the trampoline, bouncing up to hit the jack-in-the-box, causing it to spring open and hit the electrical switch, powering on the bulb, thus illuminating the magnifying glass and focusing the light to ignite the fuse on MC's rocket. ZOOM!! He flies through the air, hitting a ramp, and finally, coming in for a landing on his pad. Ah Ha! You've succeeded... your brain feels good.

Publisher: Garage Games
Platform: PC
Release Date: January 20, 2003
Release Region: United States

Here's a photo gallery of pics from the game:
http://pc.ign.com/dor/objects/497248/chain-reaction/images/chainreaction_121602_001.html

Hi, Chip, do you mean this one?

Found on:
http://freeware.remakes.org/index.php?rand=0&sl=&;

Chain Reaction

I played the demo for the game "Chain Reaction" before and found it interesting. However, I remember clicking on the link to buy the game led nowhere. The makers also have nothing else about the game on their site. I guess the game is just so old they discontinued supporting it. So my question is is the game freeware now or what. And if it's still commercial, where in the world can you buy it at. Because I've looked and haven't found it yet. Can anyone else help here?

Here's where you can download the demo:
http://downloads.gwn.com/downloads/file.php/id/3715/Chain_Reaction.html

That's very kind of you, there's no hurry. Could it be an XP update during the last couple of weeks that has made it stop working?

to get my bought copy working via my lap top. It gave the same problem as the free version when I tried to install it on all my PC's with XP. I'll upload the dll to my filefront account (when I have the time (weekends are really busy so it'll probably be Monday) I'll PM you the link when I've uploaded it.

regards

WR

If you were to look earlier in this thread you will notice that after a bit of trouble, I eventually got Crazy Machines II to run. But I never really spent any time playing the game for real.

Now 2 weeks later I wanted to give it a go and, blow me down, it now falls over before it even gets to the main menu with an error in FAKTUM.DLL (error code 0xC0000417) - this dll only exists in the game folder.

I've tried searching for what may be the problem and/or how to fix it but without success.

Can anyone here please help?

Wrabbit, if you can giveaway the extra copies, do they support internet multiplayer?

Wrabbit.....I have all the latest drives so there's nothing I can update. I do have an old corded mouse here...I'll give that a try....thanks for the suggestion. I'll let you know if it helps.

BK

Hi Buckleysmom
All I can suggest is try updating your mouse drivers. Maybe your graphics drivers too. Unfortunately I couldn'tget the game to work at all on any of my XP computers and the installation on my Vista machine froze as soon as it started. I've not installed the disc version that I've just recieved yet. I'm hoping that it's the version that I downloaded that's got the problem; most community members don't seem to have had a problem with it though. I emailed the people who were offering the game to let them know about the problems I was having. I kept getting an error message telling me that the zipped archive was corrupted. They replied saying that I was the only person to have Emailed them with the problem after over 8000 downloads. I don't know why I bothered though as I knew I'd be getting a hard copy through the post. Though at the time I didn't realize they had made an expansion pack for it.

Oddly, I'm still stuck on the first version of the game after buying it from Big Fish games last year. I've been trying to solve what should be one of the easier levels in the game (I say easier because it's only the fourth or fifth puzzle in from the beginning, lol. But, try as I might, I've not been able to solve it yet. I try not to use walkthroughs, as I've always thought they defeat the whole point.

Anyway, I hope you solve the problem with no mouse control. Have you tried plugging in a traditional one? (I keep an old keyboard and mouse just in case of problems; they have never let me down - the mouse was bought for Emily when she was a toddler and features a picture of Minnie mouse, lol.

To GMMan,
Thanks for the info, I will check that out when I have the time. (I'm rapidly drowning in the games I've been buying of late. This week I've added 14 more games to my purchases early this morning after buying the Meridian deal via Steam. £19.99 for 15 games (I'd just got one of them free for pre-ordering Trime, so now have two copies of that one - actually I have copies of some others, but still thought the offer was brillint, so will have to see if I can give away the licences - Gumboy Crazy Adventures, Obulis, all three RIP games, and Shadowgrounds).

I was playing CM2 for a while, and I'll say it was interesting. I passed the tutorial (on a demo edition I had, while downloading the full version), and it's pretty good. The guy gets annoying by speaking so much, but at least you only have to go through him once (or not at all). I'm not sure about PhysX, what the game would be like if I turned it off. Might be slower.

Phun is pretty cool. I played it about a year ago. Drawing random shapes can be fun, but not all that fun without a goal. One interesting thing to try is the fountain, removing the bottom of it and turning off gravity. Water flies up!

Hi Wrabbit.....Yes it does.....with flying colors. Note: I'm using a cordless mouse. Got any tricks up your sleeve? :)

BK

I've just discovered that my copy of Chain Reaction 2 is actually the updated version which includes a large addon, so I don't feel as foolish about missing this great offer. I must admit I was kicking myself when I saw the offer the other day for being impatient to get the game after waiting many months for it to be released in the UK.

Hi Buckleysmom, does your computer spec cover the games requirements?

OS: Windows Vista/XP/2000
Processor: Pentium 4 or better
Memory: 512 MB RAM
Graphics: DirectX 9 compliant card NVIDIA GeForce 6600 series or ATI Radeon X700 or higher
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c
Sound: DirectX 9-comp sound card
Hard Drive: 500 MB available disk storage

Is anyone else having mouse problems with this game? Mine won't work....which pretty much makes the game unplayable. Any suggestions?

Chain Reaction is quite old now at around 7 years old, despite the age the graphic is pretty sharp and the game play is excellent. You have to move a purple dragon from point A to point B using the available objects (around 50 to choose from when you use the editor to create your own levels) that include cogs, pulleys, hair dryers, windmills, motors, chains, hydrogen filled ballons and a whole bunch of other items

Someone did set up a site where you can download custom made levels, though I've not searched for it recently. The game is also 3D.

Armadillo Run, which was released in 2007, doesn't look much at first glance, but is actually a brilliant game. I think the cost is less than $10, but I'm not absolutely sure now. There are hundreds of custom made level sets, with each level set comprising of at least several levels. The levels editor is easy to use as well.

I do love this type of puzzle based game. :)

here's loads of videos of Armadillo Run:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=armadillo+run&search_type=&aq=f

I couldn't find any for Chain Reaction. Graylox posted about a games engine called Phun, which you can download for free. It's a physics sandbox based game and I happened upon a few videos of the game in action while searching for a chain reaction video and discovered that it looks similar to the Incredible Machine games that were released in the 1990's:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiKBV9Q-9Mc

I'll probably post Phun as part of the free games for the weekdays project in one of the weekly games slots sometime soon as Lox's thread may get lost easily. You can find here thread via the following link:

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/2896

regards

Whiterabbit

Thanks for the comparisons, wrabbit... and thanks for when you posted the Incredible Machine games. Have always loved those. I'll have to check out Chain Reaction and Armadillo run now! :)

The version I bought has finally been dispatched. I ordered it several weeks ago, but it's only just been released in the UK. It cost me £14.99 ($21), so the above offer is a brilliant deal. I did download it but wasn't able to get it to work on any of my XP machines becasue I kept getting an installer error (using the version downloaded from the link Campy provided for us); though it did install on my Vista laptop, but freezes when I boot the game up - (probably because the laptop doesn't have the graphics to cope with it). At least I'm going to get a copy afterall... :) You can get the first Crazy Machines from Big Fish games for less than $7. the graphics aren't as polished, but the game play is as good. If you like this sort of game there are several available, some abandonware such as the Incredible Machines games (three of which you can find in the games synopsis) then there's one from Garage Games called Chain Reaction and another called Armadillo Run (can't remember where I got that one from), both the latter game scome with levels editors and, if you go to Armadillos home site (http://www.armadillorun.com/) you can download loads of custom made levels if you can't be bothered creating

The game greylox linked to in another thread has some similarities to the above games, but then much more as well. The game is called Phun (thanks for posting the link elsewhere lox), and has been primarily designed as a physics sandbox for kids, but I think adults can have as much fun as well.

http://www.phunland.com/wiki/Home

I have just finished collecting 50 codes. Apparantly, the codes are all unique, so you can get some for your friends. My link has actually quite good odds.

Lol. I just clicked it and got another code also. And the one rO had posted comes up blank now, so might as well share while you can, since they're obviously trying to give this game away... for now. They'll probably pull all those codes after a bit.

This is odd... I used the game source link http://vdc.esportsea.com/spinner/rand.php?client=game&username=sorryass&id=PNY (note username "sorryass"), and it provides a code 9 out of 10 times. I guess I'll stock up on codes and then pass them out to my friends...

Lol, Spodo... yea! I know how you feel. And I know what you mean by starting to hit those keys a little harder, as if that would help... grrrr. Hooray for you! *&:-) What a great find, Tynnok!

IT NOW WORKS!!!

After a few minutes relaxing with a DVD, I'd calmed down a bit and decided to give the Physx installation another go and this time it did it properly; for some reason the 1st time it didn't uninstall what was already there, whereas this 2nd time it did.

And so the game now runs, phew...

Again, thanks to Txnnok, Campy and reverseOrder for taking the time to help me.

Interesting. Download came with PhysX v8.10.29 and it works on my netbook. If updating PhysX doesn't work, you may need to try some of the other suggestions provided in the "here" link provided by reverseOrder. Good find rO.

Thanks for your responses.

I been trying some things such as the Physx drivers without success so far, but I'm going to have to put it on hold for now because this and another problem have left me feeling very frustrated, edging ever close to taking it out physically on my machine; you know - it starts with hitting the keys that bit harder and escalates from there.