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Frame from Longplay: The Incredible Machine (1993) [MS-DOS] Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Longplay: The Incredible Machine (1993) [MS-DOS]

Dosgamert
Demos
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this demo1 month2021–2024 score 1.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

Used as a nostalgic link to a beloved childhood game, and as an example of a tight failure-iteration learning loop.

A two-hour complete longplay of the 1993 MS-DOS puzzle game The Incredible Machine, in which players assemble Rube Goldberg contraptions to complete simple tasks.

“Absolutely adored this game as a child.” (HN, 2024)

1 strong recommendations · 3 citations · Demos

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@vunderba Jul 2024 Strongly recommends
on HN thread The Incredible Machine (1993)
Absolutely adored this game as a child. The crazy variety of musical pieces in this game are also incredibly fitting for what amounts to a gigantic Rube Goldberg simulator. [this video]
Nostalgic love of the game and music.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@ethbr0 Jul 2021 Cites it
on HN thread How You Wound Up Playing ‘The Oregon Trail’ in Computer Class (2016)
The Learning Company stuff absolutely boosted my vocabulary (and ability to solve word puzzles). Treasure Mountain - [link] Treasure Cove - [link] And a few more random memories: The Incredible Machine - [this video] Pirates! Gold - [link] Battle Bugs - I guess what would now be RTS? But with a lot of tactical / positioning elements. So really typical 90s "trying to figure this new type of game out" - [link]
@ethbr0 Aug 2023 Cites it
on HN thread Show HN: I'm 17 and wrote this guide on how CPUs run programs
Snap Circuits looks awesome! LEGO + breadboarding To date myself, for me it was the computer game The Incredible Machine , which was a Rube Goldberg physics puzzle game... in 1993 on DOS. ;) Critically, the failure-iteration loop was tight, which really impressed "if at first you don't succeed, try try again" on my younger self. [this video]
Game gave tight failure-iteration loop in childhood.
@cassianoleal Oct 2024 Cites it
on HN thread The Incredible Machine (1968) [video]
I initially thought this was going to be about the awesome 90s game [0]. Was a bit puzzled by the date in brackets but I was wrong in my assumption. [0] [this video]
Links the 90s game.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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