Another month, another update, but this one is more special than others. As of today, we are no longer in Alpha and have grown up to Beta! This means that pretty much all of our base systems are in the game, everything is much more stable, and we have way more puzzles for people to play. This also means that our 1.0 release is coming up fast! Because we have moved up from Alpha, we have bumped the price of the game up from $9.99 to $14.99. However, the game is now a TWO-PACK. That means that everyone that purchases the game now gets a gift copy of the game along with it to send to a friend. Give the extra copy to someone you like, try out the multiplayer, and build something together!



If you have been looking for new puzzles, you are in luck. We have almost doubled our current amount of puzzles, adding 45 new ones! This brings the total official puzzle count up to 100. If you feel like you solved a puzzle in a strange or exploitative way, submit your solution to this forum thread. Some solutions are clever and will stay in, but certain solutions that break a puzzle are helpful to know about.

• Aidan's Cooler: This is similar to the other boxes, but it’s much easier to move around. It’s on wheels, and has a handle that you can attach a rope to.
  
• “Ratchet Clicker”: Hit the button or give the rope hook a pull to give an impulse (he likes it!) to the hamster and make him run for just one rotation. Official name TBD.
  
• Part Creator: Set which part you want to make and how often you want it to be made. Once the part creator is turned on, it will continue to produce the selected part until it’s turned off.
  
• Vertical & horizontal walls & pipe: These are special versions of the walls and big pipe that can only be stretched vertically & horizontally. Use these as puzzle parts to make your puzzles less exploitable. (Icons in part tray are temporary)
  
• Limited length Conveyor Belt: Conveyor belts are fun, but it can be hard to put them in a puzzle because they can be too powerful. This is a special conveyor belt for use in puzzles. It can only stretch a certain distance, it can’t be stretched diagonally, and it only has one pulley attachment.
  
• Stone Tablet: These are like dominoes, but they are slightly heavier.

In addition to part 2 of the UI overhaul, a bunch of usability fixes have been implemented to make your play experience much more enjoyable.

Usability

• You can now play levels directly from the community instead of subscribing and then going to the stash. This makes the community playing process much smoother and easier to understand.
  
• Customizable keyboard bindings: A long awaited feature. Go into the settings to check out or set your own keyboard shortcuts.
  
• Official puzzle solutions: After solving a puzzle (official or community), you can check out how the creator of the puzzle solved it.
  
• Freely rotatable parts now have buttons and widgets rotate along with them. This means buttons will no longer end up on top of the rotate handle.
  
• The puzzle boundary (the black line around your puzzle) is now used for creating the screenshot for your puzzle or contraption in the workshop. When publishing a contraption or a puzzle, you will get a confirmation window to make sure everything looks right.
  
• Animated arrows now connect frames of animation to give you an idea of the speed.
  
• You can now click the speed bar dots to change contraption playback speed.
  
• Parts can be cloned in test mode if there are some still in the tray
  
• Moved record button out of simulation controls to avoid accidental recordings
  
• Puzzle boundary can be moved
  
• When publishing a puzzle, there is now a check to see that it is actually solvable.
  
• Certain parts can now have their states edited when they are used as puzzle pieces: Egg timer, Dripping bucket, Toaster, Ray gun.
  
• Made Belt Attachment highlight red when they are out of range
  
• Downloaded levels can be displayed in the community browser
  
• Buttons that can't be adjusted when a part is locked will now disappear when that part is locked

UI

• New part selection
  
• New workshop card graphics
  
• New tooltips throughout the game. These can be turned off in the settings when you no longer need them.
  
• New handles for walls that behave differently
  
• New multiplayer server browser
  
• New animation window
  
• New puzzle goal editor
  
• New state window
  
• Infinite background grid. The puzzle boundary in make mode is now just a line.

6 new songs have been added to use as background music for your puzzles and contraptions.



New art has been made for the following parts. Some parts still have super pretty programmer art, but the list of these parts is getting pretty short.

• The big gold pipes now have different shading for each corner piece. This means all of the shadows on the pipes will now match up.
  
• Added new Wrecking Ball art. This has slightly changed the size and shape of the wrecking ball. Contraptions that used the old wrecking ball may need some adjustment
  
• Added new artwork for Thread Bobber
  
• Brick and caution walls have been changed to fit in more with the overall art style.
  
• The fight animation between Waldo and Milton now fades out

As always, these changes can make your current contraptions run differently. Give them a check and see if they are still running like you want them to. We are very close to locking these things down, which means no more breaking contraptions!

• Made Blimp and Paper Lantern be light and heat sources when going down in flames (Art for this coming soon)
  
• Toolman Tim will now walk when hit by low mass parts
  
• Explosions will now blow up Blimp when it is within range of the explosion
  
• Gave the Flying Saucer a lot more mass so it can carry other parts
  
• Adjusted rope slack for the Light Bulb, Ratchet Clicker, Ray Gun, and Trapdoor so they aren't immediately triggered when hooked to parts that only drop very small amount before coming to rest
  
• Added some friction damping to the Trapdoor platform so it won't swing forever after dropping
  
• Fixed pivot location on the Trapdoor
  
• Bucket should no longer turn on light when not moving
  
• Toolman Tim will go back to running after fall if he was running before fall
  
• Fixed Punching Fist so it can only be triggered when button shape was hit
  
• Made Lasers and Energy Bursts light fuses
  
• Allow part states to be edited in play mode
  
• Scenery groups can be right-click cloned.
  
• Made Pinball Flipper work like a real flipper (still tweaking values)
  
• Made Wood Crate less bouncy
  
• Adjusted friction of Egg -- it will not roll down angled walls/inclines more correctly instead of sliding
  
• Heavy parts will no longer tunnel through buckets

In addition to everything here, we have our usual long list of assorted bug fixes for the game. You can check out the official forum post HERE to see the complete list.

Another month, another update, but this one is more special than others. As of today, we are no longer in Alpha and have grown up to Beta! This means that pretty much all of our base systems are in the game, everything is much more stable, and we have way more puzzles for people to play. This also means that our 1.0 release is coming up fast! Because we have moved up from Alpha, we have bumped the price of the game up from $9.99 to $14.99. However, the game is now a TWO-PACK. That means that everyone that purchases the game now gets a gift copy of the game along with it to send to a friend. Give the extra copy to someone you like, try out the multiplayer, and build something together!



If you have been looking for new puzzles, you are in luck. We have almost doubled our current amount of puzzles, adding 45 new ones! This brings the total official puzzle count up to 100. If you feel like you solved a puzzle in a strange or exploitative way, submit your solution to this forum thread. Some solutions are clever and will stay in, but certain solutions that break a puzzle are helpful to know about.

• Aidan's Cooler: This is similar to the other boxes, but it’s much easier to move around. It’s on wheels, and has a handle that you can attach a rope to.
  
• “Ratchet Clicker”: Hit the button or give the rope hook a pull to give an impulse (he likes it!) to the hamster and make him run for just one rotation. Official name TBD.
  
• Part Creator: Set which part you want to make and how often you want it to be made. Once the part creator is turned on, it will continue to produce the selected part until it’s turned off.
  
• Vertical & horizontal walls & pipe: These are special versions of the walls and big pipe that can only be stretched vertically & horizontally. Use these as puzzle parts to make your puzzles less exploitable. (Icons in part tray are temporary)
  
• Limited length Conveyor Belt: Conveyor belts are fun, but it can be hard to put them in a puzzle because they can be too powerful. This is a special conveyor belt for use in puzzles. It can only stretch a certain distance, it can’t be stretched diagonally, and it only has one pulley attachment.
  
• Stone Tablet: These are like dominoes, but they are slightly heavier.

In addition to part 2 of the UI overhaul, a bunch of usability fixes have been implemented to make your play experience much more enjoyable.

Usability

• You can now play levels directly from the community instead of subscribing and then going to the stash. This makes the community playing process much smoother and easier to understand.
  
• Customizable keyboard bindings: A long awaited feature. Go into the settings to check out or set your own keyboard shortcuts.
  
• Official puzzle solutions: After solving a puzzle (official or community), you can check out how the creator of the puzzle solved it.
  
• Freely rotatable parts now have buttons and widgets rotate along with them. This means buttons will no longer end up on top of the rotate handle.
  
• The puzzle boundary (the black line around your puzzle) is now used for creating the screenshot for your puzzle or contraption in the workshop. When publishing a contraption or a puzzle, you will get a confirmation window to make sure everything looks right.
  
• Animated arrows now connect frames of animation to give you an idea of the speed.
  
• You can now click the speed bar dots to change contraption playback speed.
  
• Parts can be cloned in test mode if there are some still in the tray
  
• Moved record button out of simulation controls to avoid accidental recordings
  
• Puzzle boundary can be moved
  
• When publishing a puzzle, there is now a check to see that it is actually solvable.
  
• Certain parts can now have their states edited when they are used as puzzle pieces: Egg timer, Dripping bucket, Toaster, Ray gun.
  
• Made Belt Attachment highlight red when they are out of range
  
• Downloaded levels can be displayed in the community browser
  
• Buttons that can't be adjusted when a part is locked will now disappear when that part is locked

UI

• New part selection
  
• New workshop card graphics
  
• New tooltips throughout the game. These can be turned off in the settings when you no longer need them.
  
• New handles for walls that behave differently
  
• New multiplayer server browser
  
• New animation window
  
• New puzzle goal editor
  
• New state window
  
• Infinite background grid. The puzzle boundary in make mode is now just a line.

6 new songs have been added to use as background music for your puzzles and contraptions.



New art has been made for the following parts. Some parts still have super pretty programmer art, but the list of these parts is getting pretty short.

• The big gold pipes now have different shading for each corner piece. This means all of the shadows on the pipes will now match up.
  
• Added new Wrecking Ball art. This has slightly changed the size and shape of the wrecking ball. Contraptions that used the old wrecking ball may need some adjustment
  
• Added new artwork for Thread Bobber
  
• Brick and caution walls have been changed to fit in more with the overall art style.
  
• The fight animation between Waldo and Milton now fades out

As always, these changes can make your current contraptions run differently. Give them a check and see if they are still running like you want them to. We are very close to locking these things down, which means no more breaking contraptions!

• Made Blimp and Paper Lantern be light and heat sources when going down in flames (Art for this coming soon)
  
• Toolman Tim will now walk when hit by low mass parts
  
• Explosions will now blow up Blimp when it is within range of the explosion
  
• Gave the Flying Saucer a lot more mass so it can carry other parts
  
• Adjusted rope slack for the Light Bulb, Ratchet Clicker, Ray Gun, and Trapdoor so they aren't immediately triggered when hooked to parts that only drop very small amount before coming to rest
  
• Added some friction damping to the Trapdoor platform so it won't swing forever after dropping
  
• Fixed pivot location on the Trapdoor
  
• Bucket should no longer turn on light when not moving
  
• Toolman Tim will go back to running after fall if he was running before fall
  
• Fixed Punching Fist so it can only be triggered when button shape was hit
  
• Made Lasers and Energy Bursts light fuses
  
• Allow part states to be edited in play mode
  
• Scenery groups can be right-click cloned.
  
• Made Pinball Flipper work like a real flipper (still tweaking values)
  
• Made Wood Crate less bouncy
  
• Adjusted friction of Egg -- it will not roll down angled walls/inclines more correctly instead of sliding
  
• Heavy parts will no longer tunnel through buckets

In addition to everything here, we have our usual long list of assorted bug fixes for the game. You can check out the official forum post HERE to see the complete list.

The Alpha 6 update is finally here! It's about a month late, but you'll see that the wait was totally worth it. For this update, we have started the huge task of totally replacing the game UI. After a bunch of iterations, we have settled on a style that we feel is a great balance of fun and functionality. This is still very work in progress, and there are still a lot of parts of the UI that still need to be switched over to the new style. In addition to new UI, be sure to check out new official puzzles, new parts, some usability tweaks, part adjustments, and a new scenery set!



15 new official puzzles have been added. Our last puzzle update was mainly made up of easy puzzles, this batch should give more of a challenge. Check them out, and share all of your crazy exploits and issues :-)

• Part Disposal: Plug this in and drop parts into it to make them disappear forever.
  
• Flying Saucer: The flying saucer works like a blimp, but it moves vertically. It will fly up until it bumps something, then it will turn around.
  
• Thread Bobber: Attach a belt to this to turn rotational energy into a pulling motion. This allows you to use a belt to pull a rope.
  
• Sound Block: There are two types of sound blocks, "physical" and "powered". Physical blocks will play a sound when they are hit by something, and powered blocks will play a sound when turned on. REAL SOUNDS COMING SOON.
  
• Color Block: Color blocks function like sound blocks, but will instead show a color when turned on.

We are in the process of doing a total overhaul of the in-game UI. This is part one of the change, with the major game modes receiving an update. In the next update, the changes will be more refined, and the rest of the old UI will be changed.

• New play screen
  
• New workshop
  
• New main menu
  
• New game settings
  
• New make mode
  
• Belts and ropes no longer go off of the screen while playing a puzzle.
  
• We changed how pulleys connect to ropes. Now you can just drag a rope over a pulley to either thread it through, or to unhook it from a pulley. This is a WIP functionality, let us know what you think about it in the forums.
  
• Added curved ends to belts and let either unattached end be grabbed.
  
• Added larger graphical handles to ropes and belts to make them much easier to grab.
  
• Moved part help button to no longer be on top of wall handles.

New art has been added to a bunch of the parts. We have also added new "effects" that we are experimenting with. This includes things like stars above Tim's head when he gets knocked out, and onomatopoeia for some special in game effects.

A NOTE ABOUT NEW LASER ART: The new laser art has slightly adjusted the collision boundaries for most of the laser parts. If any of your puzzles or contraptions use these parts, there will most likely be some part overlaps. If you have any creations using these parts, you should check them out and see if anything needs nudged around.

• Fixed blurry textures on certain parts
  
• New Laser Repeater artwork
  
• Added new Domino artwork
  
• Added new Red, Blue, and Green Laser artwork
  
• Added new Laser Outlet artwork
  
• Added new art for Laser Mixer
  
• Added new artwork for the Mirror
  
• Added new artwork for the Powerstrip
  
• Sounds added for Tim's voice
  
• Play curse effect when Tim is hurt.
  
• Chomp effect for Steve
  
• Play boom effect at end of cannon
  
• Eating effects for Waldo and Milton
  
• Fight animation for Waldo and Milton
  
• Chimney smoke when Tim gets home
  
• Stars above Tims head when knocked out
  
• New explosion (WIP)

We added a new basement scenery set. With this set, we tried a few new types of parts to help you customize your backgrounds. There is a pegboard broken up into sections so you can make it into a custom size and shape. There is also a chalkboard with a bunch of different drawings you can use to make it different every time. It's a pretty fun set to play around with.

A number of physics and part behavior changes have been added. The biggest change being that the trapdoor stick and "match device" key will no longer interact with anything once pulled. Although this is not realistic, we found that having these objects actually interact with other things was more annoying than fun. It was no fun to have to create some sort of holder every time you activated one of these parts. There was also an extreme amount of differentiation on how they would behave based on the angle and strength that they were pulled at, which caused contraptions to behave very differently very easily. Because of these annoyances, we have decided to make them no longer a problem. Please give us any feedback on this change in the forums and let us know what you think.

• Made Blimp get popped by flames
  
• Fixed how explosions create holes in walls to correctly handle all various rotations of wall
  
• Let Blimp be programmed so that it can go slow or fast
  
• Toast won't go through walls anymore
  
• Toast is now a separate physics object instead of being attached to the toaster.
  
• Removed collision borders from Match Device stick and Trapdoor stick
  
• Made it possible for mouse, cat, and dynamite get sucked into vacuum
  
• Add smoke trail to missile
  
• Made Caution Wall (black/yellow stripes) not affected by explosions
  
• Made Vacuum wind affect the Jack-in-the-Box head
  
• Made initial Cheese state rotatable
  
• Made initial Nitro state rotatable
  
• Made Nitro explode when sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made initial Big Wood Crate state rotatable
  
• Made Big Wood Crate use default post physics callback
  
• Don't allow Vacuum to destroy (suck in) Recycling Box
  
• Don't allow Vacuum to destroy (suck in) Cardboard Box
  
• Made Vacuum wind affect the Punching Fist
  
• Made explosions affect the Punching Fist
  
• Added Tea Kettle to the wind group
  
• Adjusted Tea Kettle so it won't be sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made Rocket not sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made Missile not sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made Bottle Rocket not sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made Dynamite not sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made Steam Whistle affected by explosions
  
• Added Steam Whistle to the wind part group
  
• Made initial Bird Cage state rotatable
  
• Made Balloon pop if sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made initial Balloon state rotatable
  
• Made initial Dripping Bucket state rotatable
  
• Fixed bug so that Dripping Bucket won't continue to create Water Drops after it has been sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made Spring Trapdoor safe so that Tim and Nitro can bounce off of it without exploding
  
• Adjusted Spring Trapdoor so it is affected by explosions
  
• Made Lawn Mower Motor handle affected by explosions
  
• Made moving Gears pop Balloon, Paper Lantern, and Blimp
  
• Fixed Candle so it is blown out by Bellows and other wind generating parts
  
• Only suck pin of Match Device into the Vacuum instead of the whole Match Device
  
• Made Teeter-Totter only able to flip Electrical Switch when it is moving

I've run into the character limit for an announcement post, so I can't get all of the bug fixes in here. For a complete list of changes, head over to the forum to see the WHOLE POST.

The Alpha 6 update is finally here! It's about a month late, but you'll see that the wait was totally worth it. For this update, we have started the huge task of totally replacing the game UI. After a bunch of iterations, we have settled on a style that we feel is a great balance of fun and functionality. This is still very work in progress, and there are still a lot of parts of the UI that still need to be switched over to the new style. In addition to new UI, be sure to check out new official puzzles, new parts, some usability tweaks, part adjustments, and a new scenery set!



15 new official puzzles have been added. Our last puzzle update was mainly made up of easy puzzles, this batch should give more of a challenge. Check them out, and share all of your crazy exploits and issues :-)

• Part Disposal: Plug this in and drop parts into it to make them disappear forever.
  
• Flying Saucer: The flying saucer works like a blimp, but it moves vertically. It will fly up until it bumps something, then it will turn around.
  
• Thread Bobber: Attach a belt to this to turn rotational energy into a pulling motion. This allows you to use a belt to pull a rope.
  
• Sound Block: There are two types of sound blocks, "physical" and "powered". Physical blocks will play a sound when they are hit by something, and powered blocks will play a sound when turned on. REAL SOUNDS COMING SOON.
  
• Color Block: Color blocks function like sound blocks, but will instead show a color when turned on.

We are in the process of doing a total overhaul of the in-game UI. This is part one of the change, with the major game modes receiving an update. In the next update, the changes will be more refined, and the rest of the old UI will be changed.

• New play screen
  
• New workshop
  
• New main menu
  
• New game settings
  
• New make mode
  
• Belts and ropes no longer go off of the screen while playing a puzzle.
  
• We changed how pulleys connect to ropes. Now you can just drag a rope over a pulley to either thread it through, or to unhook it from a pulley. This is a WIP functionality, let us know what you think about it in the forums.
  
• Added curved ends to belts and let either unattached end be grabbed.
  
• Added larger graphical handles to ropes and belts to make them much easier to grab.
  
• Moved part help button to no longer be on top of wall handles.

New art has been added to a bunch of the parts. We have also added new "effects" that we are experimenting with. This includes things like stars above Tim's head when he gets knocked out, and onomatopoeia for some special in game effects.

A NOTE ABOUT NEW LASER ART: The new laser art has slightly adjusted the collision boundaries for most of the laser parts. If any of your puzzles or contraptions use these parts, there will most likely be some part overlaps. If you have any creations using these parts, you should check them out and see if anything needs nudged around.

• Fixed blurry textures on certain parts
  
• New Laser Repeater artwork
  
• Added new Domino artwork
  
• Added new Red, Blue, and Green Laser artwork
  
• Added new Laser Outlet artwork
  
• Added new art for Laser Mixer
  
• Added new artwork for the Mirror
  
• Added new artwork for the Powerstrip
  
• Sounds added for Tim's voice
  
• Play curse effect when Tim is hurt.
  
• Chomp effect for Steve
  
• Play boom effect at end of cannon
  
• Eating effects for Waldo and Milton
  
• Fight animation for Waldo and Milton
  
• Chimney smoke when Tim gets home
  
• Stars above Tims head when knocked out
  
• New explosion (WIP)

We added a new basement scenery set. With this set, we tried a few new types of parts to help you customize your backgrounds. There is a pegboard broken up into sections so you can make it into a custom size and shape. There is also a chalkboard with a bunch of different drawings you can use to make it different every time. It's a pretty fun set to play around with.

A number of physics and part behavior changes have been added. The biggest change being that the trapdoor stick and "match device" key will no longer interact with anything once pulled. Although this is not realistic, we found that having these objects actually interact with other things was more annoying than fun. It was no fun to have to create some sort of holder every time you activated one of these parts. There was also an extreme amount of differentiation on how they would behave based on the angle and strength that they were pulled at, which caused contraptions to behave very differently very easily. Because of these annoyances, we have decided to make them no longer a problem. Please give us any feedback on this change in the forums and let us know what you think.

• Made Blimp get popped by flames
  
• Fixed how explosions create holes in walls to correctly handle all various rotations of wall
  
• Let Blimp be programmed so that it can go slow or fast
  
• Toast won't go through walls anymore
  
• Toast is now a separate physics object instead of being attached to the toaster.
  
• Removed collision borders from Match Device stick and Trapdoor stick
  
• Made it possible for mouse, cat, and dynamite get sucked into vacuum
  
• Add smoke trail to missile
  
• Made Caution Wall (black/yellow stripes) not affected by explosions
  
• Made Vacuum wind affect the Jack-in-the-Box head
  
• Made initial Cheese state rotatable
  
• Made initial Nitro state rotatable
  
• Made Nitro explode when sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made initial Big Wood Crate state rotatable
  
• Made Big Wood Crate use default post physics callback
  
• Don't allow Vacuum to destroy (suck in) Recycling Box
  
• Don't allow Vacuum to destroy (suck in) Cardboard Box
  
• Made Vacuum wind affect the Punching Fist
  
• Made explosions affect the Punching Fist
  
• Added Tea Kettle to the wind group
  
• Adjusted Tea Kettle so it won't be sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made Rocket not sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made Missile not sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made Bottle Rocket not sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made Dynamite not sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made Steam Whistle affected by explosions
  
• Added Steam Whistle to the wind part group
  
• Made initial Bird Cage state rotatable
  
• Made Balloon pop if sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made initial Balloon state rotatable
  
• Made initial Dripping Bucket state rotatable
  
• Fixed bug so that Dripping Bucket won't continue to create Water Drops after it has been sucked into Vacuum
  
• Made Spring Trapdoor safe so that Tim and Nitro can bounce off of it without exploding
  
• Adjusted Spring Trapdoor so it is affected by explosions
  
• Made Lawn Mower Motor handle affected by explosions
  
• Made moving Gears pop Balloon, Paper Lantern, and Blimp
  
• Fixed Candle so it is blown out by Bellows and other wind generating parts
  
• Only suck pin of Match Device into the Vacuum instead of the whole Match Device
  
• Made Teeter-Totter only able to flip Electrical Switch when it is moving

I've run into the character limit for an announcement post, so I can't get all of the bug fixes in here. For a complete list of changes, head over to the forum to see the WHOLE POST.

Contraption Maker Alpha 5 (version 0.101) is here. This release involved some amazing feats of programming, and has been one of our most complicated updates, but a lot of it wont be able to to really be seen on screen. Kevin has spent the last month converting our physics engine from floating point to integer. This was an absolutely massive change that touched almost every single file in the game. We have done our best to test it internally, but please let us know of any bugs you find in our forum.

So what does this change mean? It means that Contraption Maker will now run exactly the same across all different computers, processors, operating systems, and devices. The game was already fairly consistent, but this fixes some last little problems that weren't going to be fixable. Although it's super cool now that the game will run with exactly the same results on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, etc. the other awesome feature is copy & paste.



Because of the way floating point physics work, copy & paste was not going to be possible with our old engine. Moving parts away from the origin point of the scene would sometimes cause physics calculations to give different results. This was noticeable especially if you selected a big group of parts and just shifted them a bit to the side, you would sometimes get very different results.

It's important that if you copy a group of parts, they behave exactly the same no matter where you put them in your contraption. With the new integer physics system, this is now possible. You can now select a group of parts and click the "copy to clipboard" button. Then, just right click and select paste somewhere else in your contraption. You aren't even restricted to keeping the group inside of your contraption. You can copy a group of parts, open a new contraption, and paste them there. This opens up some very cool possibilities. People can make cool "components" that are easily repeatable for their own contraptions, or sharable to other people looking for help or inspiration.

This is a very major physics change, and it will cause some of your current contraptions to run a little bit differently. For reference, of the 40 official puzzles we have right now, I had to make some little adjustments to 6 of them. So if you have some uploads out there in the workshop, I would suggest you go take a look at them and see if they are behaving like they should be.

That's all for this update. Like I said, it may not look like much on the surface (even though copy & paste is very cool), but this update was a massive undertaking, and it was better to do it now instead of later. For those of you that really want some "money on the screen," stay tuned for our next update. New art and new puzzles are coming! Also, I cannot promise any sort of timeline or deadline, but I will put this image up for those of you still wondering about a Linux version :-)

• Physics engine has been converted from float to int
  
• Groups of parts can be cloned with right click
  
• Groups of parts can be copied to the clipboard and pasted elsewhere (even in a new contraption)
  
• Adjusted electrical cords so they don't jump between outlets when more than one part are moved at the same time
  
• Clicking the part help or goal buttons will now open and close windows instead of having to click the ‘X’ every time
  
• Delete fully connected ropes and belts in a group so that ropes no longer have to be deleted twice
  
• Fixed bug where attached ropes and belts were not deleted when the parent part was dragged out of a puzzle, causing the rope to become un-deletable
  
• Fixed a memory leak on PC version
  
• Massive performance increase on Mac version

• Added location goal to Milton Mouse
  
• Initialized the electrical cord plug after cloning
  
• Changed methodology of how auto plugin of electrical cords work.
  
• Make sure cloned part ids are always sorted.
  
• Fixed segment to segment collision check to fix laser being blocked by nothing. A side benefit is the code will be slightly faster. Laser beams are very long so they were more likely to have overflow problems.
  
• Bellows wind force is no longer 65536 times too high
  
• Allowed Fishbowl to be flipped
  
• Explosion now affects Tim correctly
  
• Adjusted trigger angles on Steam Whistle so it is activated correctly
  
• Fixed overflow when calculating offset to explosion on wall
  
• Fixed max heat value for bomb's fuse
  
• Made sharp point of pin slightly larger
  
• Added profiling to lots of places.
  
• Ensure identical temporary part ids across clients    
  
• Reset temporary object ids
  
• Prevent clones from overlapping.
  
• Fixed part removal so it always occurs on the same frame that the mShouldRemove flag is set. Before it could be delayed to a later frame if a larger delta time was passed into level update.
  
• Fix memory leak in line batch sprite
  
• Sin, Cos, and Exp routines that return same values on Windows and Mac.
  
• Fixed crash when cloning from an older level    
  
• Do not allow cloning when there are overlapping parts
  
• Removed the rounding values from the fixed point routines.
  
• Fix for belts / ropes not disconnecting
  
• Sort parts to clone before cloning so they go up by part number.
  
• Fixed Rotary Limit constraint value on Jack-in-the-Box
  
• Fixed Dynamic Rope Segments to correctly handle larger values
  
• Fixed Laser Beams to not overflow when calculating start and end points
  
• Fixed quite a few sin/cos calculations in CMPart.cpp that were causing overflows
  
• Fixed impulse and damping on Bottle Rockets, Rockets, and Missiles
  
• Fixed calculation of location of Water Drop created by Dripping Bucket
  
• Fixed Lawn Mower Motor's handle's rope attachment location to get rid of divide by zero error
  
• Fixed CCDrawNode to use correct shader
  
• Fixed trampoline missing message
  
• Delete zone in puzzle mode includes being outside the window
  
• Fixed belt attachment rotation speeds to work with new integer delta time values
  
• Fixed bugs in a few places where integers were being treated as floats or floats were treated as ints. This cause some calculations to be off by 65536 times too large or to incorrectly round to zero
  
• Fixed Waldo's vision so it is slightly larger (works better)
  
• Fixed an overflow condition in Damped Rotary Spring that was causing very stiff spring-loaded trapdoors to vibrate instead of coming to rest.
  
• Fix rogue goals causing puzzle completion bug
  
• Fixed animation bug where the first frame can get out of sync.
  
• Do not play an animation with one frame.
  
• Fixed various overflow type bugs
  
• Make group cloning work in multiplayer.
  
• Prevent unlocked parts with goals from triggering completion.
  
• Fixed rectangle borders on the trapdoors
  
• Fixed explosions to not overflow by using larger impulse ranges
  
• Fixed speed imparted to Water Drops leaving Dripping Bucket
  
• Fixed collision verts of broken Fishbowl (they were still in old smaller float range)
  
• Fixed force imparted by Pinball Bumper
  
• Fixed bitmaps so they scale correctly in Punching Fist and Spring Trap Door
  
• Fixed processExplosion in Wall so that the correct segments are destroyed by explosions
  
• Fix for puzzle goals not all being checked if one has a timer.
  
• More fixed point defines and macros
  
• New square root functions that return an int
  
• Added an approximate distance routine
  
• Changes to Dynamic Rope to be more efficient
  
• Adjust Dynamic Rope Segments to run either floating point or int64 versions

Header Contraption is "Ridiculously Complicated Mousetrap" by J3lly

Contraption Maker Alpha 5 (version 0.101) is here. This release involved some amazing feats of programming, and has been one of our most complicated updates, but a lot of it wont be able to to really be seen on screen. Kevin has spent the last month converting our physics engine from floating point to integer. This was an absolutely massive change that touched almost every single file in the game. We have done our best to test it internally, but please let us know of any bugs you find in our forum.

So what does this change mean? It means that Contraption Maker will now run exactly the same across all different computers, processors, operating systems, and devices. The game was already fairly consistent, but this fixes some last little problems that weren't going to be fixable. Although it's super cool now that the game will run with exactly the same results on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, etc. the other awesome feature is copy & paste.



Because of the way floating point physics work, copy & paste was not going to be possible with our old engine. Moving parts away from the origin point of the scene would sometimes cause physics calculations to give different results. This was noticeable especially if you selected a big group of parts and just shifted them a bit to the side, you would sometimes get very different results.

It's important that if you copy a group of parts, they behave exactly the same no matter where you put them in your contraption. With the new integer physics system, this is now possible. You can now select a group of parts and click the "copy to clipboard" button. Then, just right click and select paste somewhere else in your contraption. You aren't even restricted to keeping the group inside of your contraption. You can copy a group of parts, open a new contraption, and paste them there. This opens up some very cool possibilities. People can make cool "components" that are easily repeatable for their own contraptions, or sharable to other people looking for help or inspiration.

This is a very major physics change, and it will cause some of your current contraptions to run a little bit differently. For reference, of the 40 official puzzles we have right now, I had to make some little adjustments to 6 of them. So if you have some uploads out there in the workshop, I would suggest you go take a look at them and see if they are behaving like they should be.

That's all for this update. Like I said, it may not look like much on the surface (even though copy & paste is very cool), but this update was a massive undertaking, and it was better to do it now instead of later. For those of you that really want some "money on the screen," stay tuned for our next update. New art and new puzzles are coming! Also, I cannot promise any sort of timeline or deadline, but I will put this image up for those of you still wondering about a Linux version :-)

• Physics engine has been converted from float to int
  
• Groups of parts can be cloned with right click
  
• Groups of parts can be copied to the clipboard and pasted elsewhere (even in a new contraption)
  
• Adjusted electrical cords so they don't jump between outlets when more than one part are moved at the same time
  
• Clicking the part help or goal buttons will now open and close windows instead of having to click the ‘X’ every time
  
• Delete fully connected ropes and belts in a group so that ropes no longer have to be deleted twice
  
• Fixed bug where attached ropes and belts were not deleted when the parent part was dragged out of a puzzle, causing the rope to become un-deletable
  
• Fixed a memory leak on PC version
  
• Massive performance increase on Mac version

• Added location goal to Milton Mouse
  
• Initialized the electrical cord plug after cloning
  
• Changed methodology of how auto plugin of electrical cords work.
  
• Make sure cloned part ids are always sorted.
  
• Fixed segment to segment collision check to fix laser being blocked by nothing. A side benefit is the code will be slightly faster. Laser beams are very long so they were more likely to have overflow problems.
  
• Bellows wind force is no longer 65536 times too high
  
• Allowed Fishbowl to be flipped
  
• Explosion now affects Tim correctly
  
• Adjusted trigger angles on Steam Whistle so it is activated correctly
  
• Fixed overflow when calculating offset to explosion on wall
  
• Fixed max heat value for bomb's fuse
  
• Made sharp point of pin slightly larger
  
• Added profiling to lots of places.
  
• Ensure identical temporary part ids across clients    
  
• Reset temporary object ids
  
• Prevent clones from overlapping.
  
• Fixed part removal so it always occurs on the same frame that the mShouldRemove flag is set. Before it could be delayed to a later frame if a larger delta time was passed into level update.
  
• Fix memory leak in line batch sprite
  
• Sin, Cos, and Exp routines that return same values on Windows and Mac.
  
• Fixed crash when cloning from an older level    
  
• Do not allow cloning when there are overlapping parts
  
• Removed the rounding values from the fixed point routines.
  
• Fix for belts / ropes not disconnecting
  
• Sort parts to clone before cloning so they go up by part number.
  
• Fixed Rotary Limit constraint value on Jack-in-the-Box
  
• Fixed Dynamic Rope Segments to correctly handle larger values
  
• Fixed Laser Beams to not overflow when calculating start and end points
  
• Fixed quite a few sin/cos calculations in CMPart.cpp that were causing overflows
  
• Fixed impulse and damping on Bottle Rockets, Rockets, and Missiles
  
• Fixed calculation of location of Water Drop created by Dripping Bucket
  
• Fixed Lawn Mower Motor's handle's rope attachment location to get rid of divide by zero error
  
• Fixed CCDrawNode to use correct shader
  
• Fixed trampoline missing message
  
• Delete zone in puzzle mode includes being outside the window
  
• Fixed belt attachment rotation speeds to work with new integer delta time values
  
• Fixed bugs in a few places where integers were being treated as floats or floats were treated as ints. This cause some calculations to be off by 65536 times too large or to incorrectly round to zero
  
• Fixed Waldo's vision so it is slightly larger (works better)
  
• Fixed an overflow condition in Damped Rotary Spring that was causing very stiff spring-loaded trapdoors to vibrate instead of coming to rest.
  
• Fix rogue goals causing puzzle completion bug
  
• Fixed animation bug where the first frame can get out of sync.
  
• Do not play an animation with one frame.
  
• Fixed various overflow type bugs
  
• Make group cloning work in multiplayer.
  
• Prevent unlocked parts with goals from triggering completion.
  
• Fixed rectangle borders on the trapdoors
  
• Fixed explosions to not overflow by using larger impulse ranges
  
• Fixed speed imparted to Water Drops leaving Dripping Bucket
  
• Fixed collision verts of broken Fishbowl (they were still in old smaller float range)
  
• Fixed force imparted by Pinball Bumper
  
• Fixed bitmaps so they scale correctly in Punching Fist and Spring Trap Door
  
• Fixed processExplosion in Wall so that the correct segments are destroyed by explosions
  
• Fix for puzzle goals not all being checked if one has a timer.
  
• More fixed point defines and macros
  
• New square root functions that return an int
  
• Added an approximate distance routine
  
• Changes to Dynamic Rope to be more efficient
  
• Adjust Dynamic Rope Segments to run either floating point or int64 versions

Header Contraption is "Ridiculously Complicated Mousetrap" by J3lly

Alpha 4 is out there and ready to go! This update's main focus is mainly one thing, but it's big. We now have cooperative multiplayer. This took a lot of effort from everyone involved, so things like more usability improvements had to take a little bit of a backseat this time. Also, Kevin is hard at work on some low level fixes that will allow some awesome, much needed features like cut & paste. This work isn't quite done yet though, so that will be coming in our next major update. Enjoy a bunch of new sound effects, new scenery pieces, and real time cooperative multiplayer!


This feature has been on our list for a long time, and it's so exciting to finally get version 1.0 out there. In this very first version of multiplayer, you can create or join a server and build cooperatively with people. This behaves almost exactly like the current "make" mode, but you can play together with up to 7 other people.

This is a very exciting first step. Sean and Keith put some amazing work into this over the last month, and their effort really shows. It may open up the door for future types of online play like puzzle solving or a versus mode. Join some friends, or build with fellow community members and let us know what you think!


Contraption Maker is now much less silent. New sounds have been added for the following parts:

• Whistle
  
• Solar panel
  
• Lawn mower motor
  
• Cat-o-matic
  
• Egg timer
  
• Generator
  
• Lasers
  
• Anti-grav pad
  
• Cannon
  
• Balloon pop
  
• Scissors
  
• Bellows
  
• Egg break
  
• Fish bowl
  
• Mechanical trampoline
  
• Ray gun
  
• Toaster
  
• Vacuum

A new winter themed set of holiday scenery has been added. Play around with snowballs, igloos, and candy canes.

In addition to a number of bug fixes that can be found HERE, a few new features are worthy of giving a little bit more attention:

• Auto-save backup: After you save a contraption for the first time in make mode, it will now auto-save every 60 seconds. If the game crashes, or you quit without saving, you will have a backup. When reloading a contraption, we check to see if there is a newer auto-save. If there is, you are given the option to load the new version, or your older saved version.
  
• Creatures: Adjustments have been made to Tim and his fellow animals. Waldo and Milton will now angle themselves with walls as they walk up them, creatures will now work correctly on conveyor belts, and Tim now has a faster running state that he can be set to. Some of these changes may affect how your contraptions with creatures behave, so be sure to check them out and make any adjustments needed.
  
• Official puzzle tweaks: Tweaks have been made to some of the official puzzles to remove some of the more crazy exploits.
  
• Text field improvements: You can now move around in text fields with the arrow keys. If you make a spelling error in the beginning of your puzzle description, you no longer have to delete everything in front of it.

Because of the heavy focus on getting multiplayer to work, there are sadly no new official puzzles in this update. However, there are starting to be a lot of really great community puzzles. I strongly encourage everyone to check out puzzles by community member Makies Okami. They are a puzzle machine, submitting over 50 awesome puzzles to the workshop so far. We will continue to create more official puzzles, but in the meantime, you can give Makies Okami's workshop a visit!

Alpha 4 is out there and ready to go! This update's main focus is mainly one thing, but it's big. We now have cooperative multiplayer. This took a lot of effort from everyone involved, so things like more usability improvements had to take a little bit of a backseat this time. Also, Kevin is hard at work on some low level fixes that will allow some awesome, much needed features like cut & paste. This work isn't quite done yet though, so that will be coming in our next major update. Enjoy a bunch of new sound effects, new scenery pieces, and real time cooperative multiplayer!


This feature has been on our list for a long time, and it's so exciting to finally get version 1.0 out there. In this very first version of multiplayer, you can create or join a server and build cooperatively with people. This behaves almost exactly like the current "make" mode, but you can play together with up to 7 other people.

This is a very exciting first step. Sean and Keith put some amazing work into this over the last month, and their effort really shows. It may open up the door for future types of online play like puzzle solving or a versus mode. Join some friends, or build with fellow community members and let us know what you think!


Contraption Maker is now much less silent. New sounds have been added for the following parts:

• Whistle
  
• Solar panel
  
• Lawn mower motor
  
• Cat-o-matic
  
• Egg timer
  
• Generator
  
• Lasers
  
• Anti-grav pad
  
• Cannon
  
• Balloon pop
  
• Scissors
  
• Bellows
  
• Egg break
  
• Fish bowl
  
• Mechanical trampoline
  
• Ray gun
  
• Toaster
  
• Vacuum

A new winter themed set of holiday scenery has been added. Play around with snowballs, igloos, and candy canes.

In addition to a number of bug fixes that can be found HERE, a few new features are worthy of giving a little bit more attention:

• Auto-save backup: After you save a contraption for the first time in make mode, it will now auto-save every 60 seconds. If the game crashes, or you quit without saving, you will have a backup. When reloading a contraption, we check to see if there is a newer auto-save. If there is, you are given the option to load the new version, or your older saved version.
  
• Creatures: Adjustments have been made to Tim and his fellow animals. Waldo and Milton will now angle themselves with walls as they walk up them, creatures will now work correctly on conveyor belts, and Tim now has a faster running state that he can be set to. Some of these changes may affect how your contraptions with creatures behave, so be sure to check them out and make any adjustments needed.
  
• Official puzzle tweaks: Tweaks have been made to some of the official puzzles to remove some of the more crazy exploits.
  
• Text field improvements: You can now move around in text fields with the arrow keys. If you make a spelling error in the beginning of your puzzle description, you no longer have to delete everything in front of it.

Because of the heavy focus on getting multiplayer to work, there are sadly no new official puzzles in this update. However, there are starting to be a lot of really great community puzzles. I strongly encourage everyone to check out puzzles by community member Makies Okami. They are a puzzle machine, submitting over 50 awesome puzzles to the workshop so far. We will continue to create more official puzzles, but in the meantime, you can give Makies Okami's workshop a visit!

Alright, here it is: Alpha 3! Even more parts for you to play with, some new puzzles, and a lot of usability fixes to make building your contraptions a much smoother process. Grab the latest update from Steam, or buy the Early Access to start playing this awesome new build!


13 new parts have been added, a big portion of which are lasers and their associated parts.

• Egg: The egg can roll around and be thrown around your contraptions. If it falls too far or gets hit to hard it will break. Try to throw it as far as you can without breaking it.
  
• Egg Timer: Set a time and then hit the button on the top or bottom. When time is up, the hand will give a poke.
  
• Lawn Mower Motor: Attach a rope and pull the starter. The mower will run forever.
  
• Bellows: Hit the bellows with a ball to give a one time gust of wind.
  
• Steve the Crocodile: Steve just hangs out and eats whatever comes his way. If he can't eat it, he will toss it up in the air.
  
• Phil the Fish: Phil swims around in his bowl. If you break the bowl, it will attract Waldo.
  
  
  Lasers
  Lasers and associated parts have been added. This is the very first version of lasers, and they do not have final art, but they are functional.
  
• RGB Lasers: Standard lasers come in red, green, and blue. They must be plugged in to turn on.
  
• RGB Inverse Lasers: Inverse lasers turn on by default. If the sensor on the back is hit by another laser, it will turn off.
  
• Mirror: Bounce lasers around with mirrors.
  
• Splitter: This will split one laser into two.
  
• Laser Outlet: An outlet powered by laser input.
  
• Mixer: Mix two lasers to make a new color.
  
• Repeater: Extends the reach of a laser. It can also have a delay applied to how long it takes to turn on and off.

A smaller update than last time, but there are 10 new official puzzles. These are all categorized as easy. As we have watched many people play the game, they have asked for easier puzzles to help ease them into the game. We will add more hard puzzles eventually, but until then there are plenty of awesome, hard puzzles in the Workshop.


No new scenery sets, but the forest and underwater sets have had more parts added to them. Enjoy playing with new trees, cabins, shipwrecks, and more.


A number of usability improvements have made the game easier to use. The biggest change is how ropes and belts are handled. Ropes and belts can now be selected directly instead of having to first select the part they are attached to. Also, when holding a rope or a belt, all possible attach points are shown to make it easier to see what can be attached to.

This is just a small sample of what has been improved and fixed. Check out this FORUM POST for a full list of changes.

There were a number of part changes and physics changes that may affect how your current contraptions run. Some are simple, such as the fuse being moved on the cannon.

However, there were some changes made that fixed a number of physics determinism issues. These are needed changes which help make sure contraptions run the same every time on all sorts of different computers. There is a chance that it can affect some contraptions though, so it would be a good idea to run through your current contraptions to update them.

Alright, here it is: Alpha 3! Even more parts for you to play with, some new puzzles, and a lot of usability fixes to make building your contraptions a much smoother process. Grab the latest update from Steam, or buy the Early Access to start playing this awesome new build!


13 new parts have been added, a big portion of which are lasers and their associated parts.

• Egg: The egg can roll around and be thrown around your contraptions. If it falls too far or gets hit to hard it will break. Try to throw it as far as you can without breaking it.
  
• Egg Timer: Set a time and then hit the button on the top or bottom. When time is up, the hand will give a poke.
  
• Lawn Mower Motor: Attach a rope and pull the starter. The mower will run forever.
  
• Bellows: Hit the bellows with a ball to give a one time gust of wind.
  
• Steve the Crocodile: Steve just hangs out and eats whatever comes his way. If he can't eat it, he will toss it up in the air.
  
• Phil the Fish: Phil swims around in his bowl. If you break the bowl, it will attract Waldo.
  
  
  Lasers
  Lasers and associated parts have been added. This is the very first version of lasers, and they do not have final art, but they are functional.
  
• RGB Lasers: Standard lasers come in red, green, and blue. They must be plugged in to turn on.
  
• RGB Inverse Lasers: Inverse lasers turn on by default. If the sensor on the back is hit by another laser, it will turn off.
  
• Mirror: Bounce lasers around with mirrors.
  
• Splitter: This will split one laser into two.
  
• Laser Outlet: An outlet powered by laser input.
  
• Mixer: Mix two lasers to make a new color.
  
• Repeater: Extends the reach of a laser. It can also have a delay applied to how long it takes to turn on and off.

A smaller update than last time, but there are 10 new official puzzles. These are all categorized as easy. As we have watched many people play the game, they have asked for easier puzzles to help ease them into the game. We will add more hard puzzles eventually, but until then there are plenty of awesome, hard puzzles in the Workshop.


No new scenery sets, but the forest and underwater sets have had more parts added to them. Enjoy playing with new trees, cabins, shipwrecks, and more.


A number of usability improvements have made the game easier to use. The biggest change is how ropes and belts are handled. Ropes and belts can now be selected directly instead of having to first select the part they are attached to. Also, when holding a rope or a belt, all possible attach points are shown to make it easier to see what can be attached to.

This is just a small sample of what has been improved and fixed. Check out this FORUM POST for a full list of changes.

There were a number of part changes and physics changes that may affect how your current contraptions run. Some are simple, such as the fuse being moved on the cannon.

However, there were some changes made that fixed a number of physics determinism issues. These are needed changes which help make sure contraptions run the same every time on all sorts of different computers. There is a chance that it can affect some contraptions though, so it would be a good idea to run through your current contraptions to update them.