Orange County Register

An interesting little physics-based online puzzle game has been acquired by inXile Entertainment, the same Newport Beach company that bought 2006’s popular web game “Line Rider.” The price was not disclosed.  InXile, which bought all the rights to the game, also plans to develop it into an iPhone app, much like it did with Line Rider.

Fantastic Contraption, from independent developer Colin Northway, requires players to move an object into a box. Several tools are provided to build a “contraption.” But the fun is seeing whether the contraption actually works. A week after Northway released the game, nearly 20,000 people were playing per day.

According to inXile, almost 3 million people have visited the site and created their own unique contraption since it launched in July 2008.

InXile’s founder Brian Fargo has been searching for unique web games with potential. His company turned Line Rider from a Flash-based sketching tool into a game for the Nintendo Wii and DS. Fargo, who founded computer game company Interplay Entertainment in the early 1980s, said web games can be just as addicting as games with a team of developers and multi-million investment.

Such games also offer the company more web traffic as users save their creations and share them online. Fantastic Contraption and Line Rider both get about 1 million unique visitors a month. The game has a loyal following and active user forum.

Related:

• Apple’s iTunes store adds Line Rider
• Line Rider 2 game ditches simple for slick
• OC’s Line Rider game turned into McDonald’s commercials
• Line Rider meets OC: The video
• Watch the original video with Bostjan Cadez explaining his pet project

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