The Incredible Machine is a game that has been on my wishlist for a very long time. And today is the day that it can be transferred to the “in the collection” list. What joy!

I distinctly remember playing this game on my 486sx. It was very different from most games that I had played up until then. No shooting, no running or jumping and no fighting or questing. Just tinkering and trying things out. I don’t think that I played through the whole game back then. But I would like to mess around with it some more.

And now I can with the original release. Sadly, the box has some water stains and the inner box it is a bit warped due to the water damage. But I knew that when I bought it, and it’s the reason I did, because that made it affordable. I don’t think I can do anything about the stains, but I might be able to iron the box into its original shape.

And it’s from 1992! No wait…, 1993! On entering the game into the CLZ app, I was informed that it was yet another release from 1992. The year in which 52 games in my collection were released, followed by 40 releases from 1991, 35 from 1990 and 30 from 1993 on 2nd, 3rd and 4th place. Those years definitely made the biggest impression on my gaming life. I was 16 in 1992 and had just switched from the Amiga to PC, or was about to.

But Wikipedia says its from 1993, and on further inspection, so does the box. Inside is an advertisement for the THE ULTRA-SUPREME THE INCREDIBLE MACHINE ADD ON DISK, AVAILABLE JANUARY 1, 1993!, which seems to indicate that they might have tried to bring the game out in 1992, but it was delayed.

There is conflicting information on the release date on the internet. Multiple sites state it’s from 1992, but I’ll just go with 1993, because that’s what it says on the box. That’s one more for 1993, still on 4th place.