Inside The Gear

Pros: - the graphics are decent - challenging puzzles - simple gameplay - cheap Cons: - sounds are very annoying (no options) - phyiscs are unnatural (wheel rolling downhill shouldn't lose speed) and glitchy (if your gear falls over, it will hop around and make a terrible noise) - feels like a school project someone threw together in Unity 3/10 - Even on sale at $4.94 (CAD), I feel like I got ripped off. I've played better Flash-based physics puzzle games.

For a few bucks you get a little physics game called 'Inside The Gear'. Although the game looks pretty OK for an indie game, it's the controlls that make this game frustrating to play; There is no mouse or controller support. You have to switch between objects using tab, rotate objects using Q+E and move objects with WASD. Ofcourse games like this have been done before and have been done better aswell so only play this game if you're really into these kind of games.

Here's the thing, it is a real difficult puzzle game and if you like puzzler with a great challenge, go for it, but for me there're too many bad things that prevented this game being enjoyable The bad list: - really bad interface, no resolution change, no sound option, bad control (no mouse control, this feels like a badly ported ios game) - I can't get past the fact that this is supposed to be "inside a machine"? and yet it is all about moving a dropped 'gear' to a platform, no machine operates like this and that's a huge disappointment for me

There are way better puzzle games on Steam. - No options - Graphics is not that good at all - Same for atmosphere - Physics is just strange (the box should be still, but it starts rotating and falling down from a stable platform?) Just don't waste your money. If you got/get it for free, okay. You can get even better flash games today.

An interesting premise completely ruined by poor development. Tons of bugs, no BGM and minimal menu options. The physics feel wonky and make no sense. The controls are clunky AF. There are no resolution options and honestly the game kind of looks awful. It all just kind of feels like a quick student project or something like that.

I'm not sure what I expected from this game... The objestive is very simple, move the round object to the platform with the other objects. Sounds simpe right, well not all the time. There is close to no intructions so you will have to figure it out, and zero options. It would be nice to at least have the options for sound and a choice between windowed/fullscreen. The gameplay is just ok, background is boring and the sounds are mute worthy. Overall I would like to see more

You place the stuff in a suitable formation, press enter, wooden board hits cube, cube rockets away and you fail. You try it again without moving anything, cube sits still, and wooden board rockets away. And suddenly, it works on the third try, cube falls on the platfrom, and level is completed! Yeah, that's not a really stable game you have there... Would I recommend this though? Yes, because I finished the game and had fun while doing so. It was difficult to adapt with the ever-changing reactions of objects, but it somehow worked. So, if you want to play an unbalanced/drunk/physics simulator, then get this.

[h1] Warning, this game might cause trauma. [/h1]

Edit June 2021: After trying it again all these years later it magically works now, the game hasn't been updated but my PC specs had changed, buy at your own risk. Old June 2017: Game does not work for me and many others (specs on profile if you click view more info) developer says "I think it just not compatible with your current system configurations". my system got fresh install of windows 10 on the 10th of June 2017, when I first tried to launch the game I had installed and changed almost nothing on my new system. I have 1.4 hours on record after just leaving it idle after it crashed hoping maybe it would start working but sadly no.. I would refund this game but don't want the 2 hour card drop limit so writing this review hoping for a fix.

Inside the Gear is pretty interesting physics puzzle game with a deceivingly simple objective - activate the pressure plate on the platform by using the round object. Making the object touch the platform is not as easy as it sounds and will require your creativity and patience. There are no options whatsoever, but I don't really feel that I'm missing something - there is no music, just the ambient sound and the occasional rolling sound of your gear, so I don't need the adjustable sound sliders, the keys are listed in the help screen and are not remapable, but work just fine and I didn't feel the need to change them. Now don't get me wrong, having those options would definitely be good, but the game gets away nicely without them. Now, as good as the keyboard controls are, I would love to see some mouse support implemented in the game, as that will clearly make the control of the objects more intuitive. Once you complete a puzzle, you move onto the next one, out of a total of 25. Most of them will require you to fine tune your available object's position and angle, and I would just love the option to save my original and unorthodox solution, so I can easily show it to a friend, without wasting a couple minutes, trying to emulate it. With the ambient sounds and the slowly moving gears in the background, surrounded by mist or in some kind of liquid, I could agree, that the game is atmospheric and I don't think, that the lack of music is that noticeable. Overall, I think the game delivers quite enjoyable experience for all puzzle fans, but might be quite strange / irritating for players new to the genre or lacking the patience to complete the puzzles, because it's one thing to understand what you're supposed to do, and another, to actually carefully position the objects and succeed. The price tag, the steam trading cards and the fact that I love puzzles, make this an easy recommendation! TL:DR you can check my overview video, as I complete the first 9 levels of the game: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=346369054