Pressure Works

Machines that actually workPressure Works is a machine-building sandbox running on a real pneumatic simulation. Place parts on a snapping grid, run hoses port to port, and open a valve, pressure floods the network, cylinders stroke, motors turn, and the thing you bolted together starts to move. Nothing is faked. A cylinder pushes because pressure reached it. A wheel turns because a crank drove it. When a machine doesn't work, the answer is always somewhere in the plumbing, and finding it is the game.

Air is the wiringSteam and air run on the same simulation, so a pressure line is both muscle and signal. Buttons, 5/2 directional valves, bistable latches, AND and OR valves, and a NOT valve give you a functionally complete logic set, enough to build latches, timers, oscillators, and sequencing circuits out of nothing but moving air. Cap a line with a regulator. Slow a stroke with a flow restrictor. Cut the cord entirely with an air tank.

Put a gauge on the far end to find out why nothing's happening down there. We also have colored light nodes, so for the madmen out there, build a functional computer if you wish. Real parts, real consequencesBeams, plates, blocks, axles, and wheels bolt together with pins, cross-pin for a rigid weld, round-pin for a free hinge.…