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How to play

Every level is a contraption with a few pieces missing. The goal is written at the top of the screen: get a ball into the basket, ring a bell, pop a balloon, light a bulb. Some levels have several goals, sometimes in order ("first… then…"), and they all have to happen in the same run.

1. Look at the board. Everything already on it stays where it is until the run starts.
2. Add parts from the toolbox on the right. Each level gives you only a handful, and some of them are spares the level doesn't need, so choosing the right ones is part of the puzzle. When a level has more parts than the toolbox can show, the tab at its edge opens the whole toolbox over the board.
3. Press Run and watch the physics play out. The fast-forward button beside it plays the run at double speed.
4. Didn't work? Press Reset. Everything goes back to where it started, including your parts, so you can change one thing and run again. On a level with several goals, the fail screen shows which ones were met, and Keep watching lets the run play on.

When a level starts, a goal card lists what you have to do, any special rules, and the par time and runs to beat. Tap the goal at the top of the screen to open it again. The ? button is a small menu: Goal opens the card, and Parts in this level lists what each part does. Tap a part in that list to see where it is on the board.

Special rules

Some levels add a twist. Each one has a badge in the top bar and on the level's card: tap the badge to see what it means.

• Budget: every part costs coins (the number on its card), and the parts you place can only cost so much in all.
• Shaky: the level's own parts shift a little on every run, so leave some room to spare.
• Big tray: most of the toolbox is decoys, and choosing the right parts is half the puzzle.
• Moving goal: the goal rides on a moving part, so timing matters.
• Don't touch: nothing may touch the parts with yellow and black hazard stripes. One touch fails the run.
• Pressure: the level's steam boiler bursts if it stays full too long, and a burst fails the run.
• Big board: the board is bigger than the screen. Zoom in to build, and out to see it all.

A stopwatch goal asks for everything to happen within a few seconds of pressing Run. Its countdown shows at the top of the board.

Controls

Zoomed in, the button at the top of the screen shows the whole board again. Gizmo Garage plays in landscape: if your phone is held upright, the game asks you to turn it sideways.

Stars and par

Solving a level always earns at least one star. To earn all three, pass all four checks:

• No hints
• No more parts than par
• No more runs than par
• Solved within the par time

Each check you miss costs a star, and showing a solution part counts as two. The win screen shows each check next to its par. The goal card shows the par time and runs before you start, and so does every level's page on this site.

Stars are decided on your first solve, counting everything spent on the level until then, even across visits: runs, time and hints. Replaying a solved level can't change its stars, so take your time. The clock pauses while a dialog, the pause menu or a tutorial is open.

A level solved on Easy earns at most two stars, and so does a level where any visit before its first solve was on Easy.

A skipped level has no stars until you come back and solve it (see hint tokens and skips).

Hints and difficulty

Hints

Stuck? Tap the light bulb. Until a level is solved, a hint costs it a star, so the game asks first. The hint starts with a written clue. On levels that need two or more parts, Show me a part then shows where one of them goes, free, which leaves the level with one star. Once a level is solved, its hints are free.

Hint tokens and skips

Hint tokens show more of a level's answer, or skip the level. Their buttons are in the hint:

• Another part (1 token), once the free part has been shown, shows where the next part goes. Tokens never show the last part, so you always place at least one yourself: a level with two parts shows only its free one. A level with any part shown earns one star, however many were shown.
• Skip this level (3 tokens) opens the next level without showing the answer. The skipped level stays unsolved, with no stars, and its card shows ⤼ until you solve it. There's no skip on a chapter's last level, and a skipped level doesn't count towards finishing its chapter or towards the 200 that open the bonus chapter.

After five runs without a solve, the fail screen offers a part or a skip, once for each level. You get 3 free tokens the first time you solve level 100, and 3 more at level 150; more come in packs of 5, 15 or 30 from the Shop. Tokens are kept only on the device you have them on: uninstalling the game, clearing its data or changing devices loses them. Expert mode has no hints, so no tokens either.

Difficulty

Gizmo Garage has three difficulty modes. Choose one in Settings or in the pause menu, and change it whenever you like. On Easy, the Easy badge at the top of the screen opens the choice too, and a level that keeps beating you (eight runs without a solve) offers Easy once.

Easy. The toolbox holds only the parts the level needs, with none of the spares. A level solved on Easy earns up to two stars, and no Expert mark. Hints and tutorials work as usual.

Normal. The default: the full toolbox, spares and all, for up to three stars.

Expert. Play without help. Expert hides hints, the chapter tutorials and the build guides, such as aim lines and the wires between coloured parts. Parts still snap into place.

Solve a level for the first time in Expert mode, with no hints, and it earns the ◆ Expert mark. Expert mode has to be on for every visit to that level until it's solved, and a level you've already solved can't earn it later. A chapter whose ten levels all have the mark shows it beside its name.

Chapters

Gizmo Garage has 200 levels in 20 chapters. The first level of each chapter introduces its new parts with a short hands-on tutorial, and it's always open, so you can jump ahead and come back. The other levels open one by one, each when you solve (or skip) the one before. Chapters 1–5 are free, and chapters 6–20 open with one purchase in the game (the Shop).

The level select shows each chapter's progress, its stars and its difficulty out of five. Press and hold a level's card to see its stars and rules, or what opens it. Browse every level's starting layout on the levels page.

The bonus chapter

Full Steam Ahead is a bonus chapter of steam-powered levels: boilers, pipes, valves and whistles. It waits after chapter 20, locked, and opens once all 200 levels of the main game are solved (a skipped level doesn't count). Then its steam parts join the sandbox too. See its levels on the levels page.

The Shop

Levels 51–200 are one purchase, in the game's Shop: open it from the cart button on the title screen, a locked level's card, or the screen that opens when you first solve level 50. The purchase stays with your Google Play account, so the levels come back if you reinstall the game or play on another device signed in to it. If they're ever locked again, open the Shop and press Restore purchases. The Shop also sells hint tokens. Prices are your store's, in your currency.

Sandbox and saving

The Sandbox, on the title screen, gives you every part with unlimited supply. Pick a board: Standard, Medium (about twice the room) or Large (four times the room). Build anything, then save it to My Contraptions to come back to later.

The game saves as you go: solved levels, stars, Expert marks, settings and saved contraptions all stay on your device. An unsolved level remembers its runs, time, hints and the parts you placed when you leave and come back.

Try it in your browser

The Sandbox page on this site plays the game's sandbox in your browser: every part from chapters 1–20 (the bonus chapter's steam parts stay in the game) and all three board sizes, with touch or a mouse, in SD or HD as the switch at the top of this site's pages is set. Hold your phone sideways. Contraptions you save there stay in that browser on that device, and clearing the browser's data for this site deletes them. The sandbox's open-source licences include Planck.js, its physics engine.

Settings and helpers

Settings opens from the title screen and the level select.

• Sound on or off.
• Difficulty: Easy, Normal or Expert.
• Helpers: build aids you can turn off one by one. Overview map (the corner map of a big board while zoomed in), Falling cue (a line under a part that will fall when the run starts), Drop parts (a part let go in the air drops to where it will rest), Angle readout (a turning part's angle), Power wires (the dashed wires while building), Keep builds (a level's parts are kept when you leave it), Goal card (the goal and rules when a level starts) and Magnifier (a magnifier beside your finger while you move a part by touch). Expert mode hides the build aids whatever these say.
• Tutorials: Show again plays each chapter's tutorial again.
• Progress: Reset clears stars, Expert marks and unlocked levels. Saved contraptions are kept.

The graphics, HD or SD, and HD's quality are on the title screen, and HD or SD is in the pause menu too: see HD and SD graphics.

HD and SD graphics

Gizmo Garage has two looks. HD draws the parts in 3D, with lighting, shadows and glow. SD is the original flat, hand-drawn style. Both play exactly the same: the same levels, the same physics, the same answers and the same stars. Only the pictures differ.

The game starts in HD on Auto quality, unless you pick something else. Switch looks with the SD | HD switch on the title screen, or Graphics in the pause menu, whenever you like: your contraption and your progress stay as they are. On a device that can't run HD, the switch doesn't show and the game plays in SD.

HD's quality

The arrow on the title screen's HD button opens HD's quality menu. The button shows the quality you picked.

• Auto, the one the game starts with, adapts to your device: it tests it, then keeps HD as sharp and smooth as it can hold, stepping down when it slows and back up when it can.
• Hi is the sharpest, with the most detail. It needs a fast device.
• Med is balanced.
• Lo is the smoothest, for older or slower devices.

Hi, Med and Lo stay exactly as you pick them. Under them, Frame rate picks Smooth, as many frames as your screen's pace allows (60 a second on most phones), or Performance, about half, which keeps your device cooler and saves battery. On Auto it's greyed out: Auto sets it for you.

The HD test

The first time HD starts on Auto, and after each update, the game runs a short test before the title: a test contraption plays while HD tries its settings, best first, until one runs smoothly. It takes a few seconds, and the screen shows each setting tried and how many frames a second it drew. Auto then never goes above what the test found. Pick Auto in the quality menu to run the test again. If even HD's lightest settings aren't smooth, the game tells you, and offers to switch to SD.

When the game slows down

On Auto, HD watches how smoothly it draws while a contraption runs. If its frames keep missing your screen's pace for a few seconds, it steps down: first it draws a little less sharply, then it switches to Performance, then it lowers the quality, one step at a time. A quick hiccup, such as a level loading, doesn't count. A couple of minutes later, when you open a level, it tries one step back up, and keeps it if the game keeps up; if not, it waits longer before the next try. It never goes above what the test found. Hi, Med and Lo never change by themselves.

The line under the board

In HD, the front of the ledge under the pegboard shows the quality, the graphics engine and how many frames a second are drawn, such as HD Medium · WebGPU · 57 fps. On Auto, it shows HD Auto and the quality Auto is using now. The frames are counted while a contraption runs; while you build, the board stands still and the line shows – fps. Zoomed in, the ledge is out of view and so is the line.

WebGPU or WebGL

HD draws with WebGPU, the newer graphics engine, where your device has it, and with WebGL everywhere else. The game picks by itself, and there's nothing to set. If WebGPU has trouble on your device, or is still slow at Low, HD moves to WebGL.

If HD gives you trouble, switch to SD

If HD still runs slowly at Lo, makes your device hot, or something looks wrong, such as parts flickering, missing or drawn in the wrong place, switch to SD on the title screen or in the pause menu. SD is the lightest look, and every level plays exactly the same in it. If something looks wrong in HD, please tell us your device's model and the level number, so we can fix it.

Troubleshooting

The game asks me to turn my device

Gizmo Garage plays in landscape only. Turn your phone or tablet sideways. If rotation is locked, unlock it in your device's quick settings.

My progress is gone

Progress is saved only on the device you play on, and it doesn't move between devices. Uninstalling the game, or clearing its data or storage, deletes it.

Levels 51–200 are locked again

Open the Shop and press Restore purchases, signed in to the Google Play account you bought them with. Your progress in those levels is kept while they're locked.

My hint tokens are gone

Tokens are kept only on the device you have them on. Uninstalling the game, clearing its data or moving to another device loses them, and Restore purchases can't bring them back.

The game runs slowly, or my device gets warm

Pick a lower HD quality with the arrow on the title screen's HD button (Lo is the smoothest). HD also steps its quality down by itself when the game runs slowly (see when the game slows down). If it's still slow, switch to SD on the title screen or in the pause menu: SD is the lightest look, and every level plays the same in it.

Something looks wrong in HD

If parts flicker, go missing or are drawn in the wrong place in HD, switch to SD, which plays exactly the same. Please email us your device's model and the level number, so we can fix it.

There's no sound

Check that sound is on in the game's Settings, and that your device isn't muted.

I can't see the whole board

Levels with the Big board badge are bigger than the screen. Pinch, use the mouse wheel or double-tap the board to zoom out, or press the button at the top that shows the whole board. On a phone, every board zooms this way, so you can get closer to small parts.

A level seems impossible

Every level has been solved and tested. Read the goal card again: if a level has several goals, the fail screen shows which ones were met. Then try the light bulb for a hint, or Easy, which takes out the spare parts.

Contact us

Found a bug, or have a question we haven't answered? Email contact@gizmo-garage.com. It helps to include your device's model and the level number.

Writing about Gizmo Garage? Email contact@gizmo-garage.com and we'll send you screenshots, the logo and anything else you need.