One thing I would like for the Zachtronics games is if the optimization mattered somehow other than just personal satisfaction. Such as you get achievements, special equipment, or get to unlock special stages for meeting certain optimization goals. Or since you are basically designing factories (or PCBs in the case of Shenzhen and TIS), maybe your creations earn profit based on their cost and efficiency? And maybe you have to earn enough profit to win the game, in which case would have to revisit less efficient designs to improve them.
One of the standard approaches to this these days seems to be the 3 star system.
So you can complete a level and progress, but also have motivation to back and do it better.
Then these stars can be blockers to accessing later stages, so you may have to have an average of 2 stars from 15 levels to get to the next stage (which may be visible and locked, or may show up a 'surprise' reward later on in the game).
One particular game using this method Nintendo's NES Remix also adds "rainbow" level if you do particularly well and I spent a while getting them all and enjoyed having that structure. I would guess this all takes a reasonable amount of effort to set up on the dev's side though.
Well, part of the appeal for Tom is that you can just blunder your way through the campaign: "And that’s reason 6: you don’t have to optimise. If I had to do this to progress, I probably would have quit in frustration."
I'm reminded here of Wario Land on the Gameboy: you could finish the game by speeding through levels, but the time you spent collecting treasure directly influenced the prize you got at the end. Maybe that would be a good compromise for gamers driven by external milestones rather than personal ones.
If you play Zachtronics games on Steam your best scores show up ranked against any Steam friends that have played the level. I've found trying to out optimize my friends pretty rewarding at times.
The Steam integration is nice if you have a couple of other people who also play these games because you get to compare your best with their best.
Personally I managed to keep up with the global optimums early on in the shenzhen campaign but as it went on my solutions were progressively worse than the population. (Or least the portion of it left still completing those puzzles.)
The personal satisfaction is still the main driver of course, I think having the base binary "solved or not" solution is a good way to gate progression as you can choose to optimize as you go through or do a success pass and then revisit for optimisations which suits different play styles. (Personally I like to optimize as I go).
Haven't seen any mention of Factorio in this thread. It's not as much of a puzzle game (except when going for extreme optimisation) but a resource management game.
Time, in particular. When you’re new, you think all those »more addictive than crack« comments are jokes. They are not.
Factorio has a lot in common with writing a fun new language that you don’t know how to abstract things in, figuring out as you go. Spaghetti bases will bite you just the same way as spaghetti code. And once you get the hang of it, it’s all about scaling, becoming crazier and crazier, until you have entire bases built with a swarm of flying robots in a single click. Can’t recommend it enough – but unlike Opus Magnum, Factorio is, as mentioned, definitely not a casual game.
Great review of the game, and doesn't even mention the built-in solitaire game, Sigmar's Garden, which is a fun game in and of itself, set in the same hex grid you play on in the main game.
Another excellent game I would put in the same genre is Manufactoria, a free flash game. In fact, here's a glowing recommendation for it from the creator of Opus Magnum (the game featured in the OP): http://thesiteformerlyknownas.zachtronicsindustries.com/manu...
Manufactoria is indeed excellent, it got me back into hobby programming which I had forgotten how much I enjoyed. I recently discovered that its creator has released a programming game called "Silicon Zeroes" on Steam. Haven't had a chance to play it yet but I'm sure it's good, I've sunk quite a few hours into Manufactoria so I was happy to finally send some money the creators way. :)
I enjoyed this one a lot more than his previous games. There’s not a lot of challenge to just getting through a level, so it’s more of a meditative experience. It has depth if you want to optimize but there’s less banging your head against the wall for hours completely stuck, as can happen in his previous games.
I also found that a lot more enjoyable. You can always just bruteforce your way to the solution, if you're really stuck, and then come back and optimize later.
Abstract optimization games like this remind of Verigames, a DARPA project researching gamification of scientific problems (such as protein folding or formal verification of software) so crowds of untrained human players could attempt the solve the problems.
I found this game to be terrible, in contrast to Shenzen I/O which I found somewhat fun.
The issue was the lack of any meaningful constraint, which means that there is no difficulty and solving the puzzle is just a matter of tediously entering a sequence that produces the desired result.
In theory you could try to get the most optimal solution, but that doesn't seem very fun either, since the lack of programmability and variety makes everything very bland.
Perhaps it would be a tinge more fun, if the chemistry was somewhat realistic. Though I haven't played Opus, the totally bogus chemistry of SpaceChem was detracting from the experience, and I wonder why most reviewers haven't really commented on that aspect.
I might be misinterpreting you, but Opus Magnum is "alchemy"- it makes no attempt to reflect real chemistry, the components are simply abstractions. I can't tell if that would be a pro or a con in your book, but it's a pretty good game.
I know this is unlikely to help you make a decision, but: you're right, on both counts. Personally I find Into the Breach to be more "game-like" (whereas OM and other Zachtronics titles feel like work, to me), but I think it comes down to personal preference.
From the article this sounds exactly like my experience playing code golf - coming up with a cool solution, finding out your friend did it in half as many characters, completely reinventing your approach, repeat.
SpaceChem was my favourite iPad game. It was great when travelling when you had some time to burn and it could be really challenging. It’s a shame that Zachtronics decided to drop support for iOS.
[+] [-] em3rgent0rdr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|8 years ago|reply
So you can complete a level and progress, but also have motivation to back and do it better.
Then these stars can be blockers to accessing later stages, so you may have to have an average of 2 stars from 15 levels to get to the next stage (which may be visible and locked, or may show up a 'surprise' reward later on in the game).
One particular game using this method Nintendo's NES Remix also adds "rainbow" level if you do particularly well and I spent a while getting them all and enjoyed having that structure. I would guess this all takes a reasonable amount of effort to set up on the dev's side though.
[+] [-] flashman|8 years ago|reply
I'm reminded here of Wario Land on the Gameboy: you could finish the game by speeding through levels, but the time you spent collecting treasure directly influenced the prize you got at the end. Maybe that would be a good compromise for gamers driven by external milestones rather than personal ones.
[+] [-] erik|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawayReply|8 years ago|reply
Personally I managed to keep up with the global optimums early on in the shenzhen campaign but as it went on my solutions were progressively worse than the population. (Or least the portion of it left still completing those puzzles.)
The personal satisfaction is still the main driver of course, I think having the base binary "solved or not" solution is a good way to gate progression as you can choose to optimize as you go through or do a success pass and then revisit for optimisations which suits different play styles. (Personally I like to optimize as I go).
[+] [-] panic|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pxndx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quchen|8 years ago|reply
Factorio has a lot in common with writing a fun new language that you don’t know how to abstract things in, figuring out as you go. Spaghetti bases will bite you just the same way as spaghetti code. And once you get the hang of it, it’s all about scaling, becoming crazier and crazier, until you have entire bases built with a swarm of flying robots in a single click. Can’t recommend it enough – but unlike Opus Magnum, Factorio is, as mentioned, definitely not a casual game.
[+] [-] dhx|8 years ago|reply
Also of interest may be similar attempts to create computers in other games and applications:
OpenTTD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyEzm1ghAsU
Minecraft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPaI5BJxs5M
PowerPoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8
[+] [-] pdkl95|8 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMnOEgbm2fE
[+] [-] sandralopz5|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jasonincanada|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rcthompson|8 years ago|reply
Edit: It looks like this is the URL for the latest version of Manufactoria: http://pleasingfungus.com/Manufactoria/
[+] [-] candiodari|8 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL7rSN265Yg
[+] [-] notvplez|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] empath75|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThatPlayer|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PacifyFish|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cpeterso|8 years ago|reply
https://www.scientificamerican.com/citizen-science/darpa-ver...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foldit
[+] [-] kbenson|8 years ago|reply
1: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=zachtronixs&sort=byPopularity&...
[+] [-] devit|8 years ago|reply
The issue was the lack of any meaningful constraint, which means that there is no difficulty and solving the puzzle is just a matter of tediously entering a sequence that produces the desired result.
In theory you could try to get the most optimal solution, but that doesn't seem very fun either, since the lack of programmability and variety makes everything very bland.
[+] [-] billfruit|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k3d|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhlala|8 years ago|reply
Opus looks like more about programming solving problem? And into the breach more like chess or tactical rpg?
I am curious if someone tried both could me make a choice!
[+] [-] jerrycruncher|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Deregibus|8 years ago|reply
I loved their previous game TRS-100, but Opus Magnum didn't really do it for me for whatever reason. I'm completely hooked on Into the Breach.
[+] [-] em3rgent0rdr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Inufu|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] knolan|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] em3rgent0rdr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Terr_|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pxndx|8 years ago|reply
Then depending on which one (or which parts) you like the most, select a similar one
[+] [-] dcre|8 years ago|reply