Game:

The Incredible Machine: Even More Contraptions (2001)

Duration: 21:20

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2

"While solving puzzle" was pretty neat. It was not what you'd expect one of these puzzles to be; you had to finaggle around enough to activate the computers to figure out where the 'win button' was hidden. If you're going to make a contraption where the goal isn't explicitly told to you, this is a good way to do it.
"Not what you think" wasn't bad, but had some issues. The first was that you gave way too many parts. The second issue, which goes hand in hand with it, is that by giving the player so many resources you make the puzzle susceptible to being backrouted. The average player is going to look for the easiest solution, and that may involve breaking your puzzle, especially if you're given so many tools with which to do that.
"Patience" wasn't bad. The main game didn't use programmable balls often, so its neat to see a puzzle that does. Having to wait for 25+ bounces was excessive though. 5 would have been enough to prove the point, the rest is just needlessly boring.
"Hidden Figures" was... Cryptic. That's the best word for it. Instead of the usual puzzle this game asks, you went about asking the player to discover the exploits you found in the engine, but without really giving any indication or tips as to how to go about doing so. Rather, you did the opposite: Actively tried to mislead the player with false information. That's like asking them to solve a jigsaw puzzle but you've secretly taken three pieces out of the box and hidden them around the house without telling them. The exploits themselves were neat, but nobody would be able to figure them out in a reasonable amount of time. Couple that with the fact that many pieces had to be placed very precisely (the curse that I like to call the 'precision puzzle'), I can't say I was a big fan of this one. Though the machine with the gears was neat; a puzzle revolving around this could be really good.

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