There are essentially two types of perpetual motion machines, projects, theories, or attempts. The first kind of perpetual motion machine are the ones that seem to violate the first law of thermodynamics. This law is the idea of the conservation of energy, that energy cannot be created.
Most attempts at perpetual motion try to do this, and they fail. The second kind attempts to produce work from a single heat source. This is also impossible since it goes against the second law of thermodynamics. Heat cannot be shifted from a colder to a hotter body. These attempts at perpetual motion continuously fail because they violate the laws of physics