Labyrinthmaschine in action

A game is not truly tested until someone other than the designer has played it. Now I have in the past been somewhat careful about letting others even touch the Labyrinthmaschine – I was scared it could break. By now my fears have been alleviated and a small handful of others have been allowed into that particular dungeon of mine. Today, my older son wanted a go – and I let him.

Crafting: Die Labyrinthmaschine / The Labyrinth Machine

As I have mentioned earlier, this started out as my attempt to make a fully analog mechanical roguelike as well as a second machine for my cardboard arcade. I figure, I can make about one of these things per year – and this one was to be even more videogamey than the pinball I had made in 2018. I took the additional free time that a vacation of my family without me provided to craft this monstrosity:

Now, this probably doesn't tell you much yet. Let's get into the nitty-gritty details of making the Machine.

Crafting: A cardboard pinball machine

When we were on family vacation to Greece this year, the hotel had a little pinball machine that you could play to win rubber balls (and you couldn't lose. You'd eventually get your ball). I played it for my son as he wanted the ball and I wanted the play. It made me think of building my own pinball machine again. A quick search on the net told me that actual components are incredibly expensive. Then I found the large number of cardboard crafting videos on YouTube that had actually covered this topic.

I decided to make one myself. It took a while, in the end I even had to wait for a suitably large thing to be delivered to our house in order to finish the last big components. It took five or six sticks of hot glue but I think the result is quite nice:

The thing is big: 50 by 25 centimeters. And it works quite well: You can actually get the marble to run up the ramp and then come back down via the bridge. I'm quite fond of it and play it every once in a while. Make no mistake though: It took me roughly 40 hours of work to make this thing over the course of several weeks. If you don't enjoy the crafting process, there are alternatives out there.