How to play
- Goal
- Build a contraption from the loft's crate that rings every bell when the balls drop, within the loft's purse.
- How it ends
- A loft is won when every bell has rung. A contraption that misses costs nothing: change it and let the balls go again.
- Record
- The cheapest contraption and the one with the fewest parts that ring every bell, for each loft.
- Choose a part from the loft's crate. Drag to lay an oak plank or a drumskin from one end to the other (or tap one end, then the other); tap where a seesaw, a bellows or a bucket lift should stand. Tap a part to choose it: drag it to move it, drag a plank's end to stretch it, Turn faces a standing part the other way, and Remove takes it away. Parts snap to a half-unit grid and may not cross stonework, each other, a bell, a hopper's drop or a dashed kept-clear space.
- Each part costs copper bits and the loft's purse pays for them: a part it cannot pay for is not set. Planks carry a rolling ball; a drumskin bounces it back with all its speed; drop the heavy iron shot on a seesaw's high end to throw what rests on the low end; a ball landing on a bellows' plate puffs a gust that blows balls away from its nozzle; a ball in one cup of a bucket lift sinks it and the other rises, and a cup's mouth rings a bell it meets.
- Let go: each hopper drops its ball at its time. A bell rings when a ball or a moving part touches it, and the loft is won when every bell has rung. If the balls come to rest, leave the loft or run for 25 seconds without ringing everything, nothing is lost: the dotted trails show where the balls went, so mend it and let go again.
Controls
| Drag on the loft | Lay a plank or a drumskin from end to end |
|---|---|
| Tap the loft | Stand a seesaw, a bellows or a bucket lift there |
| Tap a part · drag it | Choose it · move it (a plank's end stretches it) |
| Turn · Remove · right-click | Face a standing part the other way · take a part away |
| Let go | Drop the balls; Stop returns to building |
| Arrows · Enter | Move the cursor; set a part, or a plank's ends |
| 1 – 5 | Choose a part from the crate |
| Tab · T · Delete | Choose each part in turn · turn it · remove it |
| Z · Y | Undo · redo |
| G · F | Let go (or stop) · faster |
| R · Escape | Clear the loft (it asks) · let go of a choice, or pause |
The loft backdrop, the bell, the bellows, the hopper, the stone and oak textures, the fonts and the sounds come from the Morass warehouse; the planks, drumskins, seesaws, lifts, balls and trails are drawn by the game. A contraption is sent as its design alone, and the records worker plays the run again with the same core before it ranks it. Your progress and the contraption in each loft stay in this browser under morass.tinkers-contraption.v1. No ads or analytics run inside the game.
About Tinker's Contraption
A contraption puzzle in the bell-tower of the Iron Sept at Skarkeld, the Engine City, where the whole city keeps its day by the muster-bell at dawn and the close-bell at dusk. The old ringer's arms are gone and the ropes are too heavy for one apprentice, so you are the Sept's loft-tinker: in each stone bell-loft you set oak planks, stretched drumskins, forge bellows, seesaws and bucket lifts, then let the brass marbles and iron shot drop from their hoppers.
A marble rolls along a plank and flies off its end; a drumskin gives back every bit of a fall; iron shot dropped on a seesaw throws the marble on its other end high into the loft; a ball on a bellows' plate puffs a gust; a ball in one cup of a lift raises the other. Everything snaps to a half-unit grid, and a run is the same to the last bit in every browser, so the same contraption always does the same thing.
There are 120 lofts in eight towers, each bringing one part: planks, drumskins, bellows, seesaws, bucket lifts, then two bells, iron and brass together, and the close-bell. Every loft was built with a working contraption before it shipped, and none rings with nothing, by chance or without its tower's part. Each keeps a Top 10 for the cheapest contraption and one for the fewest parts, and the site plays a record contraption again before it keeps a place.
