At the expense of briefly sounding like Ric Romero, I’ll say this: These days there is an endless amount of flash-based games online, but most of them aren’t any good. Some flash games are fun, (like most of the ones on Armorgames.com or Shockwave.com) but others miss the mark, like most side-scrolling games or the xiao xiao stick figure knock-off games.

I discovered a game that breaks all the rules of online flash gaming, it’s called Fantastic Contraption.

Fantastic Contraption is a game based on physics, ingenuity, and imagination.  The object of the game is to get the pink-colored object to the pink-colored area.  Sounds easy right?  Well you have to build crazy contraptions that carry, roll, drag, or throw these pink objects into the goal.  Sometimes you can immediately tell what you have to build, other times you can spend an hour trying to finish a level through trial and error.  Not only is it fun, but it gives your brain and willpower some serious workouts.

The game is fun, but if you register it through paypal for ten bucks, you can create your own levels or test your skill against levels designed by other people.

I thought since I enjoyed the game so much I would register it…. I cannot recall ever registering software other than an operating system until this point.  We’ve all had those registry scanners or wallpaper packs or whatever that always beg you for like $25, I’ve always felt the prices were incredibly high for something as dumb as a screensaver or whatever..  (That’s another thing, it doesn’t matter what kind of software it is, it’s always $25).

Anyways, I thought I’d be the only person who’d pay for it but I was surprised to see a fairly large community who bought it also.  So to those who play this game and are thinking about buying it, you’re not alone.

The funny thing is the controversy that’s been going on.  The site administrator inserted ads on the main page which totally pissed some people off.  Not only is there a big forum entry on it (http://fantasticcontraption.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3097) but there’s also the famous level that somebody made that says “I did not buy to look at ads!” spelled out in the background

(http://FantasticContraption.com/?levelId=110398)

The site administrator affirms that only 1% of the people who play this game register it, so the revenue generated from the ads goes to upkeep for the server.

I personally think it’s a load.

There are 521 replies to the thread devoted to ads with 6605 views. While not everyone replies just once, a great deal of these are single posts from single users.  I would think that most people who haven’t spent a dime on the game wouldn’t be concerned over the appearance of ads, just content of the game.  There are TONS of posts with people who make really good points on how the freeloaders should get the ads while the registered people should be ad-free, all of this with no response from the administrator.

In my opinion, the site administrator isn’t as short on cash and resources as he has made himself out to be, I think that his high-dollar ad space (Ads from AT&T on a high traffic site?) is his attempt at making the game his primary source of recurring income.  Oh well, whatever.

Anyways, Fantastic Contraption is a good game that everyone should check out at least once.  The User-Created levels add some re-play value to it, but whether or not you would want to shell out $10 for it while still seeing ads can evidently cause even the best mannered nerds to go completely apeshit.