Everything is a Rube Goldberg machine

A passing mention of a Rube Goldberg machine in Poker Face S2.E9 unlocked one of my earliest gaming memories. Maybe that’s where my love of detectives started too.

Back then, I didn’t even know that’s what they were called. All we had was a stack of floppy disks and my cousins' old PC. I just remember how mesmerizing it was to tinker with the puzzles in The Incredible Machine.

Use a hand cannon, a mousewheel, a cat, and a candle to light a rocket? Done. Puzzle completed. Balance a seesaw with a bowling ball so a pair of scissors drops and pops a balloon? Easy. Next level.

Looking back, it’s hard not to see the butterfly effect, and pretty much everything in life, as its own Rube Goldberg machine. A tangled chain of moments and choices that somehow drops you right here.

One random email leads to a dream job. An acquisition changes everything. Another hard-won role ends in a surprise layoff, and somehow the whole contraption spits you out in a different country.

Forget one ingredient. Get distracted for two minutes. The pan scorches, the kitchen smells like regret, and suddenly you’re ordering takeout.

A few late nights turn into more stress. You skip one too many walks. Months later, you wonder why you feel off.

And it's the same in fiction, only with better lighting and a soundtrack.

Romantic comedies are emotional Rube Goldberg machines. A missed train, a spilled coffee, a wrong number, and somehow you end up at a wedding.

Tragedies work like that too. One careless word, a chance encounter, a door left unlocked, and everything unravels.

Detective stories flip it. You start with the final outcome, then trace back through all the odd little pieces and mechanisms that made it happen.

So was it that floppy disk with The Incredible Machine that’s responsible for my love of detective stories now, or was it Columbo? No idea. There was also MechWarrior 2 and some F1 game in the mix, and while the MechWarrior universe still hooks me, Formula 1 never did.

The interconnectivity of it all fascinates me to this very day. Part The Incredible Machine, part slow-burn whodunit -- except it's your own life, and you're both the detective and the suspect.