An Engineer Ranks All The ZACHTRONICS Game
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ต.ค. 2022
- In this video, I show you why I went to college.
Consider supporting what I do: / zyllius
Okay, you got me, it's not every Zachtronics game, but you know what I mean
Music used:
Fork Lifter - Rhythm Heaven Fever
Everything Else - The OST of the Zachtronics games - เกม
![ทททททททท #27 [หลุยส์ เค โตมายังไง ณ สระบุรี]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/CaKoYw_Xmtg/mqdefault.jpg)
Zachtronics games are my favorite games to beat the first half of.
First half? Got a real brainiach here. I'm lost after the third level
Facts.
@@Hyperlooper Literally me in Exapunks, still don't get it.
I've played most of them, but I think the only one I completed is Infinifactory. It both never gets as challenging as the rest and is short and doesn't overstay it's welcome. A lot of the other games either get really hard, or are so easy that it's not fun anymore, and are long enough that I feel like I got enough and move on. I think I'm going to boot Exapunks back up. I remember the style of it being so good, but I haven't touched it since release.
worst part is when you come back to one after years you have no idea what's going on and you're already in the deep end it's just so hard to pick up again. all of mine are at like 80% complete
I'm the reason why Opus Magnum has the "Hermit Mode" option. When the beta came out I, not liking seeing the scores of others, asked Zach in an email if there was some way to hide it. He told me to change the value in a .ini file and I never looked back. Then when the game came out officially, he included a deliberate option called Hermit Mode which skips the end-of-level comparison to other people. Fun times.
Ā edditing games in its files, always fun.
Ofc the man who created a game which is literally just assembly code asks you to edit files to change settings lmao
@@lilyofluck371 To be fair it was the early beta of the game so it makes sense.
@@GodOfReality I know, but any other dev would probably just say, "sorry, not a feature yet" lol
I'm pretty sure Zach had mentioned in an interview when last call came out that he was really stepping away from developing the games to teach computer science in school.
From what I recall, that same interview also mentioned that he looked at the working hours and salaries, got horrified, tried it anyway for a bit, got horrified even more by the conditions and rushed back into freelance programming. Mostly because, all jokes aside, he had an idealized view of teaching and that view got shattered the moment he looked back at it seriously.
Just imagine the dude creating these games is your teacher. You'll get some according to him simple task and just absolutely despair over it together with your classmates.
@@Maddinhpws Judging by what I've played of Opus Magnum, he knows how to manage difficulty curves, so I'd be pretty stoked about having him as a teacher.
@@TheNextDecade244 He probably taught computer science to more people through his games than he would have as a teacher
As the official 23rd person to beat Infinifactory, I endorse this video and your opinions of these games.
Especially the note about the soundtracks. The Infinifactory soundtrack is still my go to replacement for any other game that requires focus (like Factorio for example), in the same way I play the Sim City 4 soundtrack over any city builder.
I was the 129th person to beat Opus Magnum. Unfortunately I lost the certificate but I've still got the patch.
@@DoshDoshington Rather Shocked they did certs for people who beat it, Got into Opus Magnum trying to 100% the games, and got stuck on TIS-100 and took a break trying to beat MHRD (if you never heard of it, it has you build components from NAND up to CPU) Both of which broke my spirit . Now I feel I must try again. Heard of the games when I tried Minecraft alpha on the Mojang site. But it's amazing to find out you helped create a level that got into the main game for Spacechem. Loving the coverage of more niche games between bursts of Factorio torture.
@@LarryGumballiirc MHRD is a direct rip off of the NAND to Tetris course isn't it?
Frozen Synapse also has a good soundtrack.
Gove me the Sim City 3000 OST or give me death!
You know how the guy who made cookie clicker made an "idle game maker" to show people how it worked? I picture the future Zachtronics game you jokingly mentioned at 31:35 being like that: Zach makes a game where we learn how to code our own Zachtronics games.
Last Call BBS is KIND OF like this. There's an interface where you can plug in a javascript file and add your own games to the BBS server, and I've seen a few folks make puzzle games using it, including a sokoban game where you write programming for the player
The final game is just a link to Visual Studio Code, and the manual is an actual x86 Assembly Reference Document
Zachtronics actually already released this, its called Zach-Like, and it is mostly a collection of PDF files ... not a game.
Oh, Lord. Imagine if Zach made an addition to Pyanodon's Mod for Factorio where you had to use SpaceChem to program every chemical factory. :shudder:
pretty sure that's impossible to do with the factorio mod API, one of the biggest limitations is that you can't really add new types of things.
Zachtronics mechanics in Factorio? It almost feels like a sin to think about the infernal potential this has.
@@artey6671 id play it
I think someone very recently made a proof of concept mod like that called FactorioChem ?
@@artey6671 I would love a game where you make the production lines and make the machines which work on the production line
Its amazing that you did a Tier List. It seems simultaneously anathema to who I imagine you are, and also exactly in line with exploiting systems for maximum befit (to wit, photoshop instead of the stupid tier maker). I love everything about it, and welcome your dominance in the youtube space.
That means a lot coming from the Dûnyain
@@DoshDoshington Oh man, *and* you have the worst taste in books?! I guess I'll hit the bell thing by subscribe in celebration - I don't know what it does (never hit it before) but if it helps the algorithm then you earned it. Of course I'm much too cheap to do something actually useful like patreon, but you get the idea. Cheers.
what's dunyain?
@@NoNameAtAll2 Its from a fantasy book, and a better question is "who are the dunyain?" And so, a quote from the wiki "The Dûnyain are a severe monastic sect that has repudiated history and animal appetite in the name of finding enlightenment through the control of all desire and all circumstance."
@@NoNameAtAll2 a group of characters from a book series (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_of_Nothing)
In a sense, Zach was a bit like Toby Fox. A brilliant mind that just couldn't stop exploring and reexploring the same vein of ideas conceived more then a decade ago. And then he suddenly could.
He always could, I just don't think his other games were as successful as his puzzles, both design wise and commercially, so he had to choose: another niche puzzle game for the fans or something new and risky. I tried them. They are alright. A lot of people seem to think that too. Eliza stands on its own a bit cause its a VN, but even it doesn't seem to be particularly successful, although I loved the story: Zach clearly wanted to write more than his puzzle games would allow him to.
@@g1gabyt3 until this vid, i honestly didnt realize that Eliza was a zachtronics game. Got it from humblebundle and didnt pay to much attention to the developer. Same with iron clad tactics.
I didnt realize last call would be their last game, but i can completely understand it. Wants to pursue other passions, so more to him.
Did Toby Fox suddenly stop working on Deltarune?
@@ITAndroMedian hopefully
@@ITAndroMedian no
There's like 5% of me crying that this isn't the next SpaceEx video, but the rest of me is always happy to watch a self-described weirdo talking about these strange, hyper-difficult, niche games.
Thank you for doing your thing good sir. Love the content you've been putting out!
Man especially this episode is super interesting, I'm even considering playing it myself!
Nikidino is a bot
@@spacecowboy511 How come? I'm not.
I don't wanna watch the SpaceEx videos until I've actually completed SpaceEx myself... I've never had a better driving force behind me playing that mod than now, and I'm only saddened that I didn't start sooner.
At least his series will be complete before I finish it, since I'm guaranteed to play it slower than both him playing it and editing and uploading his videos.
These non-SpaceEx videos actually give a great break between them so I can still enjoy his content without re-watching older videos.
Last Call BBS is honestly amazing, and I sincerely hope Zach returns with new games in the future. His work was extremely niche-oriented while simultaneously ahead of its time. It makes me happy to see people reference Infiniminer in modern times. It often feels forgotten.
Maybe he will come up with new ideas for games when he's working somewhere else and eventually return to game development. We can hope, right?
Infiniminer isn't forgotten
it's just that the name is the only thing that is remembered
I feel like the last few puzzles in XBLAGHG: the forbidden path having one answer is kind of thematic to approaching divine perfection. Same goes for the lack of any kind of instructions or tutorial.
Zachtronics legacy is incredible. Every single one of their games is absolutely stunning from both an educational and gameplay standpoint. The fact that he gave it all up to become a teacher really speaks miles about the guy, he could've dropped a game or two every year and made easy money off of people like me but he knew what his true calling was and didn't even hesitate when given the choice.
Absolute respect, a fucking real human bean.
And a real hero
Honestly the way his games work he really is a teacher and he should consider the wide audience he was able to teach
Not literally every single game. Ironclad Tactics isn't anything special, and while I do like Möbius Front '83 a lot, it's a tactical turn based game.
Still, I own most of their games for a reason. Zach Barth is one hell of a game designer.
Moebius Front '83 and Last Call BBS are their best games IMO. ExaPunks and TIS-100 come close to those, but I'm not a huge puzzle game player.
After finishing this video, I decided to try Exapunks.
The game was exactly what I was looking for in a programming game. Awesome visuals, great music, and cute little Exas running about the place as they frantically try to execute the spaghetti code you cobbled together after dozens of trial and error attempts. I've managed to beat the game in about 3 days (just the main campaign).
People do say that the last level of the base campaign is absurdly difficult. It is, but as with any problem, all you need to do is break it down into simpler steps. Layouts, file locations, register values, and other things can also change, but always look for any consistencies and work off of that. As far as I'm aware, that's free code right there.
If you liked the programming challenges in Exapunks, definitely try TIS-100 and Schenzhen I/O as well.
Exapunks actually does have code size limit. You can see it in "size" to the right of the control buttons.
Even though you would rarely hit it while doing the campaign "normally" (aka just to complete the levels), that is something I had to keep in mind when going for speed solutions.
Your solutions only show up in the histogram if you stick to the instruction limit. I think the ability to go over it was added during Early Access at some point.
That Authorization statement is crazy. Glad you mentioned it. A lot of apps now days have similar permissions.
I think Shenzhen I/O was my first Zachtronics game and probably one of the games that started my deeper understanding of how computers work. Also, printed manuals are my favourite gimmicks of zachtronics games. Bought EXA Punks, printed the magazines and asembled them and used extensively during playthrough, I love this feeling so much!
My first Zachtronics game was Ruckingenur II back in 2009. What a wild ride it was, definitely made a lasting impression and made me fall in love with their style.
After presenting my 8.2k red SPM production, I got immediately hired as an electrical engineer in automation
Zachtronics are both my favorite and most frustrating puzzle games. I love the purity of puzzleage, but there will, invariably, be a point in each one where I run into a wall because I somehow do not understand some concept involved - often even after watching a guide - and it'll make me feel stupid for weeks.
I once got a solution to a Space Chem puzzle I got stuck on in a dream. And it worked!
My favourite part of TIS-100 was beating the first page of puzzles only to find out there's a second page of even harder community made puzzles to beat
Yeah that hurt
Haha, pretty awesome to see a call out to my old series on Shenzhen I/O. Definitely an interesting series to make, and I liked some of the little things that really felt familiar, like an all Chinese data sheet, however I don't think I have played it sense. Great ranking, I enjoyed the content Dosh.
31:18 After 25 years in programming, I'm starting to feel that programming is just a game too.
After playing Factorio I better understood the importance of some programming concepts, like good design, planning beforehand and scalability.
@@ankh_k And that's before you start playing in multiplayer. It's amazing how wonderfully Factorio captures the feeling and motions of software development while not really being a programming game at all (excepting circuit networks, of course). It's a game I recommend if you want to experience what making software is like without having to do any programming.
ZACHTRONICS is fabtabulous. love the games. super cool that you're covering them
one of the most underrated things about the zachtronics games is the music. hope to see more from matthew S burns in the future
opus magnum is by far my favourite because i find it visually the easiest to parse, as well as having the programming and design seperate for easier reading. also coolest aesthetic. makes me want to learn how to make a game just so i can make sequel to opus magnum to fix all the nitpicks i have, and add more depth
He... did mention it, though?
Addition to these a small studio zach-like: The signal state. Its basically modular synths with farm equipment clothing. And if you want to go a bit deeper to modular synth sinkhole there is VCV rack. I wouldnt say its a game but its a great "engineer's musical instrument"
Haven't played zach games, but completed signal state. This kind of logic game is a little more enjoyable than assebly ones for me... But I wonder how difficult is it compared to zach games? Where would you put it in this list?
Personally I feel that forbidden path and 20th century food court having no real tutorial is actually one of their strengths. It helps capture the feeling of the entire collection of exploring this new/old system and it helps distinguish them from other games with similar feature.
It makes it less friendly to pick up but figuring out what your doing and how was quite a joy for me personally especially with forbidden path. Even if you do get the hang of it decently quickly
Also assembling and painting robots Is the best games they've ever made and no you can't chance my mind lol
I had Opus Magnum for a long time in my library telling myself "I'll play it someday maybe" and your vid made me play through it all... And I'll buy the rest of the games once they're on sale. I am so excited for TIS-100 (as a computer science student)
Amazing video as always!
Thank you for this. Zachtronics has been a part of my life since those early flash days. I played most of the games over the years and loved every one of them. I still tell people about Shenzhen IO because I love the concept so much. I actually missed playing a couple of these and should get around to playing those since I know I will enjoy. Great video.
spacechem will always be known to me as "That $5 game you buy and play with a walkthrough to get the fishcake"
I remember opening the puzzle in TIS-1000 where it asks for graphical output and fleeing from the game. Never could seem to wrap my head around the SWP command...
SWP just swaps the values in ACC and BAK around. You can't address BAK directly, so it's like putting a value in the back room of a store and wheeling in what was already there.
Perhaps Zachtronic puzzle game would fit more in the title as there is no mention of Möbius Front '83, Eliza and Ironclad Tactics
The hard part about Youtubing is when you need to make an inaccurate but more eye-catching title
@@DoshDoshington coulda just covered them too
@@ragnose1 Sadly that takes both time and effort. It didn't feel like they fit the theme well enough to justify it.
I could listen to your commentaries and narration all day!
25:01 - can't stop laughing my ass out!))))
it's actually "constructor" btw)
It's a shame he probably never saw this comment. It's super hard to tell in that screenshot, but on the web page it's clearly just using the Cyrillic characters which resemble the English(/Latin) characters to just write "Constructor" in English. I'm sure there's a word for that, but I couldn't find it.
Hey thanks for this video and the recommendations. I know your channel from factorio content, but have never even heard of zachtronics games before. Really enjoying spacechem right now.
Best video you've ever done. Love your stuff and this was AMAZING
2 notes:
Hack match is nearly a direct clone of "Magical Drop 2" for Neo Geo arcade. Different skin, but exact same mechanics, great game.
Also, Future Food Court is more of a play on Modular synthesizers. This is how electronic music used to be made in the 60s and 70s, and the most popular format for people still using modular synthesis is called "euro-rack". A lot of the modules in food court were ripped straight from popular eurorack modules.
If you want to give it a try, there's a FOSS program called "vcv rack" that emulates having a physical eurorack setup. Worth a download if you're curious
Loved this video, showed me a world of games I never knew existed, and am now tentatively interested In.
I’m sure one day Zach will be back to make more games, perhaps even in this style.
Been curious about these games, thanks for the overview!
I never heard of any of these games before and I want to play all of them now. Thank you for sharing. _Also_, I like how you'll spend time making self-referencing insults but then later turn it around on the viewers, that gave me a chuckle. And huge props for calling out the awesome keygen music of this era. It's an art form I forgot existed.
Excellent video! Great reminder for me to take a look at some of the best games in my steam library.
I just have heard about Zachtronics, I got here expecting a factorio like games tierlist, now I want to play all these games and I love the thought of it, thank you for expanding my world.
I have 3 of the 8, only managed to finish one of them. I am really sad Zach closed shop, because these games were a fantastic gift to like-minded friends and one of my "nerdy" safe places to relax and close the world out. I really hope that at some point Inspiration will hit him again and we ll end up enjoying something new and really cool.
Bought TIS as a teen
A decade later, I work with real controllers on low level, yet I still dread the temptation to revisit it
I enjoyed this and I enjoy pretty much all your videos including Factorio
was just about to buy exa punks, but then found out it was already in my library. crazy. great video as always.
update! the game just made me want to code instead, so that's great. pretty fun tho, will pick it up later.
got here because of the excellent factorio videos, and was surprised to see someone tackle the zachtronics games
i got into spacechem really hard around the time it was bundled into one of the humble indie bundle games and zach's games ever since then have been a favorite genre of mine; i've also managed to submit a single puzzle for solutionnet, photovoltaic cells under an old moniker ive used, 'alice_k'.
sad to see its the end of an era, but it was immensely fun cracking my head open with these games. having managed to beat tis-100 by myself is probably one of my biggest gamer achievements. will be missed, but hopefully will inspire more people to explore this genre of problem solving games
Learning about npn and pnp transistors this semester. Nice to see it has real world applications for these games
I've never heard of any of these games, but still a highly entertaining video, as always.
Zachtronics is my favourite developer. It's awesome to see a big youtuber talk about them because I feel like they really fly under the radar for people who aren't into CS / programming.
Personally, I'd move spacechem to the top of S tier difficulty, and infinifactory to the top of A tier. They both require a far more geometric style of thinking about problems compared to TIS and shenzhen,.
I basically agree with the quality chart though, Exapunks / Opus Magnum are definitely his best two games. The 3d building in infinifactory felt frustrating, so I'd probably move that down -- but I haven't finished the game so maybe I'll get used to it when I play it again.
I am so happy right now, asked dosh to make a video of some of these games and I get blown away that HE ALREADY HAD and that the games were from the same producer. Zachtronics games are amazing!
After watching this vid decided to pick up my first zachtronic game since there is was a steam sale going on. Picked up exapunks and really enjoyed it and I’ve already picked up shenzen I/o and tis-100 can’t wait to play them. They have served as great puzzles to rack my brain over. Plus it was an interesting challenge since I never had experience with low level programming.
Damn what an amazing video and review, I really got a sense of the games and I couldn't stop watching being tottally fascinated. And this despite having decided it was really time to go to sleep before I started watching and knowing absolutely nothing about programming beside 2 lines of codes in html.
So damn very nice video and definitely will check it out and maybe pick one up if I have the time and mostly the balls to try one. XD
Yoooo, finally, a fellow Zachtronics enjoyer!
Man. There's like a million things I'd love to bring up now, but to limit this comment to a sane word count:
That final line of yours? Probably the best summary of the whole Zachtronics phenomenon that there is.
Which is exactly why, after completing their 3 coding-related games, I am feeling a bit *scared* of seriously attempting to clear another one.
I already had enough trouble falling asleep recently after trying to understand competitive Tetris builds. My mind needs a break.
Opus Magnum *does* look extremely tantalizing though...
Wishing the honest best to all the Zachtronics people. May their future endeavors be successful and fulfilling.
sdpc loop stays winning
Nice to see someone talking about Opus Magnum it's definitely my favorite mostly because I don't need to read the manual though that doesn't stop me from not comprehending it.
Oh yooo! Didn’t know that the factorio challenge guy also played zachtronics games! I have only played opus magnum but loved it.
Thanks for this amazing video ! I had never heard of Zachtronics games before and you’ve just made me discover so many awesome games. I’m already subscribed because of your factorio content but if i could i would have subscribed a second time. I really like you commentary and editing 👍
Somehow you manage to make the only videos over 30 minutes that I watch all the way through at 1x speed. Thank you.
I have loved all the zachtronics games. Well, actually I mostly love beating the scores of my two nephews who play them. Once my nephew somehow got wise and started beating my infinifactory scores, so I of course had to return to the game and max out my scores again. Thank you for making this video. I appreciate it and agree with your rankings.
I wish we could be steam-friends so I could see how my scores match up with yours.
there's a really fun text post zach wrote about reverse engineering an old star wars game he loved as a kid, explaining his whole process and advancing bit by bit. Look up "Zachtronics Yoda Stories" to see it.
This gave me some fun context of a world I didn't even know existed. Zachtronics.
I've always loved puzzle games and thought I was good at them
but I've never actually tried any actual hard ones.
I've been interested in getting Infinifactory for a while now
but I never actually knew anything about it, other then gameplay.
I remember my solution for 14:49 your solution blew my mind. It is literally making me rethink all of my previous designs. Holy shit. I can't undersell how mind blowing that little clip was. My God Prometheus comes down once more
Thanks for this! I really should replay some of these :3 And actually play Exa Punks. I was so burned from not being able to finish Tis-100 and Shenzhen I/O I kinda ignored it when it came out x)
Great stuff, Dosh!
Loved this video!
Always glad to hear Dosh
gotta say, knowing now that Zachtronics made that browser version of Opus Magnum years before is a wonderful warm sip of calm joy. Opus Magnum itself is the only one i've bought on steam and i greatly enjoy it; trying to figure out how to optimize one of the three ranking categories for each machine is aggravatingly fun, and the bonus puzzles at the end that brute force a max machine size are Extra Fun.
I never had the capacity to play Zach-likes / programming games but I always respected them, ironically my favorite one is morbius front '81 since I DO know how to play tactics games... Alas, this is the end of an era for gaming, thank you for chronicling it for the gamers of the future, may their heads hurt at these games with joy too.
TIS-100
Quite often, your (self-imposed) goal is to produce a program which runs as fast as possible.
There was an achievement for first level, however, for producing a really slow solution.
It became my mission to find the slowest (halting) design with the finite space available. After a few different approaches, I'm satisfied this design is basically the worst possible. This feels like the best place to talk about it.
There's a strip of 3 cores, and a disconnected strip of 5 cores. We can ignore the 3 core strip, it's useless to us.
Each core has two registers, and so can store two variables at a time. Each variable has a maximum value of 999.
The goal: Turn these ten accumulators, which can store a max value of 999 each, into one big virtual variable, which can store 999^10. Force this virtual variable to count down to zero before passing the value from start to end.
The method: Use each core as a nested loop, one register only decrementing once the other has hit zero. Don't let a core decrement until the previous has reduced both registers to zero. Only once the final register has hit zero do we pass the value from beginning to end, as promised. In effect, a 10x nested loop.
The result: Running in fast mode, register 1 blazes away. Register 2 decrements almost exactly once a second. We can extrapolate that the full program requires roughly 1000^8, or 10^24, seconds to move a single value. Testing this is impractical. For the purpose of optimization benchmarking, we'll set all registers to 3.
Time to move single value (all 3s): 43m, 45s.
(When I started this comment, it was actually 2:15. After all these years, I figured out a way to get two extra rounds of decrements out of each core, multiplying the time by a factor of 20. Exponentials are fun. Future tests will need to set all registers to 2, though. It's almost 2 am.)
This is the 5 core program I wrote, in full. if you're quite bored, may be fun to try out.
N is the number placed in the registers. For full length, use 999. For benchmarking, use 2.
I've included # comments to explain some bits.
Core 1:
T: MOV N ACC . .# set up i
L: SWP . . . . . . . . # mov i into secondary register
MOV N ACC . . . .# set up j
S: NOP . . . . . . . . # a nop burns an extra cycle per inner loop, for fun
JLZ CC . . . . . . . .# if j has decremented to -1, inner loop is complete
SUB 1 . . . . . . . . .# decrement j
JMP S . . . . . . . . # jump to start of inner loop
CC: SWP . . . . . . # put i back in primary register
JLZ C . . . . . . . . .# if i has decremented to -1, outer loop is complete
SUB 1 . . . . . . . . .# decrement i
JMP L . . . . . . . . # jump to start of outer loop
C: MOV 0 LEFT .# send "continue" signal (0) to next core
MOV LEFT ACC # wait for signal to come back from next core
JEZ T . . . . . . . . .# if return signal is "continue", start from beginning
MOV UP LEFT . .# otherwise, signal was returned "complete". move the value
Cores 2, 3, 4: (These cores are identical, save the MOV commands, which each point in different directions. They'll be abstracted to PREV and NEXT.)
T: MOV N ACC
L: SWP
MOV N ACC
S: MOV PREV PREV . .# wait for "continue" signal, immediately send it back
SUB 1
JGZ S . . . . . . . . . . . . . # if j hasn't reached zero, jump to start of inner loop* and wait
SWP
JLZ C
SUB 1
JMP L
C: MOV PREV NEXT . # send "continue" signal from previous core to next
MOV NEXT ACC . . . . # wait for signal to come back from next core
MOV ACC PREV . . . . # send copy of signal back to previous core
JEZ T . . . . . . . . . . . . . # if return signal is "continue", start from beginning
MOV PREV NEXT . . . # otherwise, signal was returned "complete". move the value
* SUB-then-JGZ has two problems over the JLZ-then-SUB used elsewhere: 1) the original value of N never reaches JGZ, because the decrement happens first, and 2) the loop breaks at j == 0, instead of j == -1. In effect, it only runs 998 times, instead of 1000. However, JLZ-then-SUB has one huge disadvantage: it's actually a JLZ-SUB-JMP; you need an extra unconditional jump to restart the loop. cores are capped to 15 instructions, so for these middle cores, I'm flat out of room. For the record, until yesterday, I was using SUB-then-JGZ everywhere. It was realizing this optimization that gave me the 20x time boost I mentioned in the above comment.
Core 5:
T: MOV N ACC
L: SWP
MOV N ACC
S: MOV LEFT NIL
MOV 0 LEFT . . . . .# costs one more cycle than MOV LEFT LEFT, had room for it.
JLZ CC
SUB 1
JMP S
CC: SWP
JLZ C
SUB 1
JMP L
C: MOV LEFT NIL .# burn "continue" signal
MOV 1 LEFT . . . . .# finally... send "complete" signal
MOV LEFT DOWN # move the value, completing the test.
I still have my Adeptus Est badge from Zachtronics for being one of the earlier people to clear the main story on Opus Magnum. Still love revisiting it and seeing what crazy solutions I can come up with for the puzzles.
20:03 Very relatable! My solution for the final level (which explicitly forbids the RAND instruction) involved some horrid waiting and came out to 2800 cycles. I still have the gif on my desktop as I actually got that far, switched computers, and had to play the entire game again "from scratch" (seeing as I already had some idea of what I should do, just lacking the actual code) before solving it.
Thanks for recommending this developer. I took a look for some of their games and got Opus Magnum. Played it for a few hours and really enjoyed it. Money well spent!
Yeah you got things you should be doing. Like finishing the space ex trilogy. I haven't anticipated a sequel so hard since Brandon Sanderson was announced to be finishing the wheel of time series.
Kidding of course. I'm happy to hear the dolcete tones of your dry sarcasm, especially when it's an expose of games I'll never play, let alone master, just like your tower climb or marrow playthrough.
Thanks for covering these. I've played SpaceChem a fair bit, and loved Kohctypyp (spelling?!) even though I wasn't very good at it.
Koнструkтoр/Konstructor, finally I found a purpose for my formerly useless skill of rapidly locating letters in windows character map
Amazing video, maybe the best on this topic
Its always fun when you come out with games from the corners of gaming ive never even heard of!
Granted to me all of them look like god damn magic, not just Opus Magnum
When you think about it, a programmer uses a strange language known to a select few to inscribe the right combination of magic words to force energy to resonate through a matrix of crystals and effect a change upon the material world.
It IS magic.
Exapunks is a real gem. I now keep my matrix chat in the bottom right tmus pane while I work on code in vim on the left with my repl in the upper right.
I wish real programming was justas fun as exapunks... but professional development feels more like the first level of the game...
Damn I’m definetely going to give these games a go.
I hope he keeps making games though, I can only imagine what he would create in other genres.
Finally! The stars have aligned and I am primed to begin my programmer arc, one of the biggest hurdles to me is that I didn't understand how it all works: how words became beep boops, 1's and 0's. The very act of words becoming code was daunting, I needed some context, some lore, an explanation for what was to me the elephant in the room: how do you code with words or even other numbers if computers only understand 1's and 0's?
Now that I know programing language is essentially a code within of itself , and literally a type of language that makes human to computer communication easier; translating information from human to computer, the whole field changes from undecipherable dark magic I can never understand, into something I may one day learn and don't feel as innately intimidated by due to ignorance.
Thank you for helping fill in the gaps of my knowledge, even if a part of me liked not understanding because it meant I could Imagine Computer scientist or any other type of tech nerd as WIZARDS who somehow turn ones and zeroes into a MAGIC SUBSTANCE/FORCE that can be manipulated into any sort of use! now that i know how it works however, I'm going to KEEP imagining that you are all real life wizards just because its fun!
27:20 pretty sure this is a thing and it's called Biopunk.
Actually pretty interesting video, as a mechanical engineer I might give Infinifactory and Opus Magnum a try
I would love to see you try/review Hacknet in this style
TIS was my first zachtronics game and I’m a mechanical engineer grad with only minimal coding experience. It’s honestly one of my favorite of his games, for its elegance and universality.
These games make me feel far more dumb than zelda puzzles ever did
Retro-Ahoy's video was pretty great. Probably going to pick up opus at some point
I know I should be listening to your commentary, but the solution at 15:23 surprised me
These games look amazing, how have i never heard of any of these??
Only ever played Opus Magnum, but I did optimize that as much as I could. This review helped me figure out the other games are not for me.
The section about Moleck-Syntez gave me war flashbacks to college chemistry, I should give the game a try lol
I love Zachtronics solitaire, and the side games with the needy puzzles are neat too!
Really though, even though Opus Magnum is the only one I've beaten, the games I've played have been great, and in many cases the solitaire (or equivalent) has been half my playtime. I played Opus Magnum on my Steam Deck and there was a perfect haxagonal grid of fingerprints where the marble game board was for a few months. I wish I hadn't got stuck in Shenzhen IO.
Honorable mention to TIS-100P on iPad, with a retro software keyboard which makes it 200% more charming
I was expecting this video
You can get a printed manual for Shenzhen! I leave it on my coffee table and when nerd friends visit they're fascinated by a bunch of microcontrollers that don't exist it's awesome. :)
man i wasn't expecting to know about/have played like half of his titles, small world!
lol I too studied CPE...
thank you for reminding me with that assembly game why I switched into software engineering as a career path after graduating
I actually really enjoyed Molek Syntez for how much fun it was to optimize the speed of a solution. It gave you just enough limitations on the "waldos" that there was a challenge and you felt so smart for doing something cool with them. Trying out different ways to organize their orientations and locations sort of thing. My real complaint is that there wasn't enough variety in the systems. Except for the chemicals changing halfway through, the puzzles were kinda the same thing but harder. My play style was to have a blast for a bit, put it down for weeks to cool off, and then come back refreshed. But I can see where if you weren't interested in optimizing it wouldn't be your jam.
On the other hand, optimizing in Opus Magnum was less interesting. You covered why price/area was boring but I saw some solutions for speed and they ended up being a bunch of arms on tracks. Not very thought-provoking.
Also, I found SHENZHEN I/O to be substantially more challenging than TIS-100.
I'm sad to see it ended, but happy to experienced the journey
I did the first few days of Advent of Code last year in EXAPUNKS as a challenge. Great game. Most of them are. I didn't get on with Infinifactory though, I kinda bounced off that one. Last BBS is on the pile of games I need to get round to.
i like how you talk of cractros like they are exclusively from the past.
not 4 days ago i defiantly did not download some game that definitely came with a cractro!
not nearly as common anymore but they are still out there.
This video reminded me of that one time I made a redstone state cell in vanilla minecraft that reduced frames of everyone on the server to 5. Good times.
24:59 You scared me for a second. It’s 2 AM, i am chilling with your pretty voice at background and suddenly you start dying, sneezing and coughing at the same time. Its constructor btw
I bought shenzen i/o a few years ago, i didn't realize it was a zachtronix game! It makes so much sense though!
Molek-Syntez was apparently developed for a bigger project, but was turned into its own thing instead. You can tell it hasn't received the same kind of love as the other games -- specifically, the bonding mechanism is unpredictable. This means that for some of the later levels, I had to pad the instruction set to find the one configuration where the atoms would bond correctly. It was annoying -- but it's a short enough game that can be finished in an afternoon.
Seeing your rankings is kind of funny. Infinifactory and Opus Magnum are the two Zachtronics games I've played to any serious extent. I tried Tis 100 but realized I could get paid to be good at the game and that that was a sign of its unplayability, and I knew what Spacechem was because it had Team Fortress 2 tie-in games, but IF and OM were the only two where I managed to complete a level.
Maybe it's because I was playing them as a teen and there was a few-year gap in between, but I never beat either - Infinifactory was so hard that I stopped being able to understand the solutions, and Opus Magnum was so easy that I was 2/3rds of the way through and was spitting out complete solutions on my first try. Both of them became hard to get invested in after that.
It's funny that that's what being one letter-grade apart means in terms of difficulty.
Ever since I got it, Opus Magnum has been installed on my computer permanently. I am up to 600 wins in Sigmar's Garden.