Machines that actually work

Pressure 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 wiring

Steam 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 consequences

Beams, plates, blocks, axles, and wheels bolt together with pins, cross-pin for a rigid weld, round-pin for a free hinge. Gears mesh by geometry and belts span the gaps, so gearing down a winch genuinely makes it harder to turn, and a heavy enough load will stall the piston driving it.

Machines are rigid groups connected by joints, so what you build holds together like real structure. Build a crank engine, a lifting rig, a walker, or a cart, then take a seat and drive it in first person.

Ways to play

• Sandbox — no goals, no limits. Parts, space, and an idea.

• Puzzles — solve a problem with a restricted parts list and a part budget. Restriction is where the depth is.

• Time trials — build a vehicle, ride it, chase author times and medals, and race the ghost of your best run.

• Challenges — open-ended scores. Build the tallest tower, launch something the farthest, haul fragile cargo without shattering it.

Build once, keep it forever

Save slots, named blueprints, full undo and redo, copy and paste. Any machine, or any sub-assembly of one, can be copied to your clipboard as a shareable code and pasted straight into someone else's game. Build a good crank engine once and stamp it into every machine you make after.