When I was 9 I played Robot Odyssey, a notoriously difficult game even for electrical engineers, obsessively all summer.
I got to the last level on my own and learned a TON about logic gates. Maybe it's why I'm in robotics today.
The point I want to make is to never underestimate the capacity for children to learn and never assume something's too difficult. You don't have to get far for it to be a worthwhile endeavor.
Spacechem gave me a strong feeling of nostalgia for Robot Odyssey. It was very difficult. Didn't hold your hand. And was totally open ended on how you solve problems. Which results in feeling incredibly fulfilled when you do solve a puzzle. That feeling was what hooked me. I was so proud.
I love that. I've played most Zachtronics games as well as Robot Odyssey at 15, was hooked on Robot Odyssey for a week for the same reasons. The difficulty was a challenge rather than an impediment.
What really got me was that the games encouraged something like hand-optimizing the size of your program. The levels were open-ended and the solution could be anything, but each solution has a cost, for example, least number of gates used in Robot Odyssey. In SpaceChem, it's number of symbols. In The Codex of Alchemical Engineering, cost is measured in total number of instructions, which encouraged solutions involving many different parts moving perfectly in sync. Those solutions were really difficult but rewarding to craft. However, cost in Opus Magnum is measured in total cost of parts (not instructions) used. That's less interesting to optimize, since the 'best' solution is often one part doing all the work (easy to optimize for), which in my opinion makes it a little less fun to play. Similarly, I remember the last few levels of Robot Odyssey didn't have much space in the way of optimizing (there is just one Correct Solution) which was underwhelming.
I guess my point is that the games were fun not because I had so much freedom in how I can finish each level. Rather it was the difficulty of optimizing each solution that attracted me. And it's hard to find games like that outside Zachtronics.
Aside, but I notice that none of the games here are marked as a 5/5 in difficulty. Having played some of their games, I wonder what constitutes a 5/5 in the creator's mind?!
Well. If you want a 5/5 challenge, fire up Shenzhen.io and set the language to Chinese. It seems to be beautifully translated to my limited ability to discern, but boy is it hard to learn enough Chinese to play the game! Difficulty: 5/5
> Well. If you want a 5/5 challenge, fire up Shenzhen.io and set the language to Chinese.
Ironically, in China some gamers complained that the game is kind of unrealistic as all the datasheets are available in Chinese, it shouldn't and it has made the game less challenging... In real life, engineers in Shenzhen rarely read or write formal datasheets in Chinese, even when the IC is completely designed in China.
Doing it in English can be a bit difficult for a freshman who is unfamiliar with the terminology, which can make the game a bit more interesting. I wonder if the developers should add a "native language w/ English documentation" option for those who want a more authentic experience.
I wonder if he reserves that score for SpaceChem. He revealed in a talk[1 @ 19m20s] that he has never personally beaten the last level. Instead, he just proved it was possible using pencil and paper.
SpaceChem is currently $2.50 on steam. I picked it up because I've never played a Zachtronics game before. Despite the trailer looking stupid, I have been blown away so far.
Why just public schools? At least in California (and I suspect elsewhere), teachers at private schools are paid quite a bit less than public school teachers.
I know this because I used to work at a private school! I did that for two years, then left all of it for a tech job so that I could climb out of student loan debt and actually have a decent life. (The basic issue is that parents can't afford to pay more because they pay twice for education: first they pay taxes to send other kids to school, and then they pay private school tuition on top of that for their own kids. The result is tens of thousands of dollars in lower pay for private school teachers.)
Anyway, the point of this isn't to dump on anyone's school. I just want to help correct the idea that private schools are somehow less worthy of care and attention than public schools are. The truth is that private schools are often in financially precarious circumstances!
Private schools can use the games, they just have to be not-for-profit (as opposed to a for-profit school, like DeVry). The vast majority of private schools are not-for-profit.
I worked on a team that was giving away a video game to public schools, but we had a really hard time convincing anyone to take the game. They wanted technical support and other things we couldn't provide. We just had the game.
Zachtronics is a beautiful developer. Such a niche genre, so perfectly executed. I'm a bit behind but just started Shenzen I/O. It's a programming puzzle game done right. This is perfect for schools, it's genuine programming-thinking packed into a game-like challenge.
It's interesting that SpaceChem apparently isn't included? Maybe because the kinda fake chemistry would drive science teachers mad?
SpaceChem's omission is probably just oversight. The SpaceChem page itself makes a similar offer, with the same link to Zach's e-mail: http://www.zachtronics.com/spacechem/
This is a very popular model for educational/education-adjacent titles. Not surprising that zachtronics has also filed suit.
Schools generally don’t purchase solutions that don’t have content that fills their entire curriculum’s needs (eg. think a product that covers all of a subject from grades 1-8)
This way, schools act as a great marketing channel for these educational products which are downloaded at the discretion of individual teachers for their particular one-off introductions/lesson plans. Then parents purchase paid versions for their kids at home.
This model can be seen (and has found success) with educational apps Prodigy, Codespark Academy (Foos), and more.
This is not to say it’s purely a marketing ploy- there’s plenty of social good too to being able to expand your content’s reach for educational purposes to many many more players and students than you may have otherwise without a free for schools model.
> This is not to say it’s purely a marketing ploy- there’s plenty of social good too to being able to expand your content’s reach for educational purposes to many many more players and students than you may have otherwise without a free for schools model.
Especially games that teach something as fundamental to the future, and lacking in good course work, as programming. These are probably one of the best collection of tools for such content.
Zach's games are great, I'd heartily recommend TIS-100, Shenzhen I/O, and Exapunks to anyone. Despite his ratings on the site, I actually found Infinifactory the most difficult of the bunch for me, but maybe that just means I'm not as good at spatially oriented puzzles.
I'm the same, I find TIS-100 and Shenzhen I/O reasonably comfortable in comparison to the other titles. I haven't completed either, I've almost completed TIS-100, but shenzhen I/O really pushes me way beyond my comfort zone but is more fun. I struggled to even get into spacechem or infinifactory at all. I found exapunks trickier to reason about but in a different way, I got stuck on a tree search puzzle where I find it tricky to match what I expect to happen with what actually executes because of I struggle to reason about the lifetime of the workers. (I've just realised I think I also struggle to program in Rust because of similar problems reasoning about lifetimes and borrowing).
I love all of the TIS-like Zachtronics games. I remember ignoring a professor and finishing the hidden puzzle during a 6-9 humanities class a few semesters ago.
It's the perfect mesh between "fake" and a real skillset.
I could also definitely see having a school leaderboard (to optimize for the best solutions against class mates) being very fun.
have a lot of respect for companies who do this. Just want to chime in from a developing nation perspective.
we have no computers - no laptops, no desktops. All of India is on mobile phones (usually Android). It would be awesome if future educational content is developed mobile only.
Toolkits like Flutter, AWS Lumberyard and React Native allow for ios+android games being built.
The only reason that mobile based education games for children are not as popular as they could be in the US ..is because of the fundamental concern around "smartphones==bad". I think Steam can do a lot here by allowing parental+time based locks around games.
`SHENZHEN I/O contains minor references to drugs and alcohol and a little bit of swearing. It takes place in China and includes Chinese characters and situations. Students may acquire an increased sense of the ridiculousness of modern capitalist society.`
LOL.
Shenzhen I/O is the only Zachademics game I bought on Steam and is actually an addictive card game, with a programming game as an Easter egg.
I would love to use these games as activities in my undergraduate software engineering course, but it says they must be installed on school computers :(
All of our students are required to purchase their own laptops so we aren’t eligible.
I thought KOHCTPYKTOP would be featured :( It got me into pondering how actual logic circuits work (as opposed to theoretical circuits with instant output).
[+] [-] Waterluvian|6 years ago|reply
I got to the last level on my own and learned a TON about logic gates. Maybe it's why I'm in robotics today.
The point I want to make is to never underestimate the capacity for children to learn and never assume something's too difficult. You don't have to get far for it to be a worthwhile endeavor.
Spacechem gave me a strong feeling of nostalgia for Robot Odyssey. It was very difficult. Didn't hold your hand. And was totally open ended on how you solve problems. Which results in feeling incredibly fulfilled when you do solve a puzzle. That feeling was what hooked me. I was so proud.
[+] [-] efm|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darkkindness|6 years ago|reply
What really got me was that the games encouraged something like hand-optimizing the size of your program. The levels were open-ended and the solution could be anything, but each solution has a cost, for example, least number of gates used in Robot Odyssey. In SpaceChem, it's number of symbols. In The Codex of Alchemical Engineering, cost is measured in total number of instructions, which encouraged solutions involving many different parts moving perfectly in sync. Those solutions were really difficult but rewarding to craft. However, cost in Opus Magnum is measured in total cost of parts (not instructions) used. That's less interesting to optimize, since the 'best' solution is often one part doing all the work (easy to optimize for), which in my opinion makes it a little less fun to play. Similarly, I remember the last few levels of Robot Odyssey didn't have much space in the way of optimizing (there is just one Correct Solution) which was underwhelming.
I guess my point is that the games were fun not because I had so much freedom in how I can finish each level. Rather it was the difficulty of optimizing each solution that attracted me. And it's hard to find games like that outside Zachtronics.
[+] [-] knolan|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HNLurker2|6 years ago|reply
Would give the game a try but, 15 year old electrical school guy would find this useful
[+] [-] faitswulff|6 years ago|reply
Well. If you want a 5/5 challenge, fire up Shenzhen.io and set the language to Chinese. It seems to be beautifully translated to my limited ability to discern, but boy is it hard to learn enough Chinese to play the game! Difficulty: 5/5
[+] [-] segfaultbuserr|6 years ago|reply
Ironically, in China some gamers complained that the game is kind of unrealistic as all the datasheets are available in Chinese, it shouldn't and it has made the game less challenging... In real life, engineers in Shenzhen rarely read or write formal datasheets in Chinese, even when the IC is completely designed in China.
Doing it in English can be a bit difficult for a freshman who is unfamiliar with the terminology, which can make the game a bit more interesting. I wonder if the developers should add a "native language w/ English documentation" option for those who want a more authentic experience.
[+] [-] jetrink|6 years ago|reply
1. https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1017983/Ahead-of-the-Curve-The
[+] [-] bangonkeyboard|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kej|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cableshaft|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umvi|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NoodleIncident|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AnIdiotOnTheNet|6 years ago|reply
Opus Magnum > TIS-100 > Exapunks > SpaceChem > Infinifactory > Shenzen I/O
[+] [-] maxharris|6 years ago|reply
I know this because I used to work at a private school! I did that for two years, then left all of it for a tech job so that I could climb out of student loan debt and actually have a decent life. (The basic issue is that parents can't afford to pay more because they pay twice for education: first they pay taxes to send other kids to school, and then they pay private school tuition on top of that for their own kids. The result is tens of thousands of dollars in lower pay for private school teachers.)
Anyway, the point of this isn't to dump on anyone's school. I just want to help correct the idea that private schools are somehow less worthy of care and attention than public schools are. The truth is that private schools are often in financially precarious circumstances!
[+] [-] elil17|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brians|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Simulacra|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulryanrogers|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nothis|6 years ago|reply
It's interesting that SpaceChem apparently isn't included? Maybe because the kinda fake chemistry would drive science teachers mad?
[+] [-] jcl|6 years ago|reply
A fun anecdote from a GDC talk (https://archive.org/details/GDC2013Barth at 21:57):
U.K. schools: We want to use SpaceChem to teach programming familiarity.
Eastern European schools: We want to use SpaceChem to teach problem solving.
U.S. schools: We want to use SpaceChem to teach chemistry.
[+] [-] dyarosla|6 years ago|reply
Schools generally don’t purchase solutions that don’t have content that fills their entire curriculum’s needs (eg. think a product that covers all of a subject from grades 1-8)
This way, schools act as a great marketing channel for these educational products which are downloaded at the discretion of individual teachers for their particular one-off introductions/lesson plans. Then parents purchase paid versions for their kids at home.
This model can be seen (and has found success) with educational apps Prodigy, Codespark Academy (Foos), and more.
This is not to say it’s purely a marketing ploy- there’s plenty of social good too to being able to expand your content’s reach for educational purposes to many many more players and students than you may have otherwise without a free for schools model.
[+] [-] SolarNet|6 years ago|reply
Especially games that teach something as fundamental to the future, and lacking in good course work, as programming. These are probably one of the best collection of tools for such content.
[+] [-] soup10|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] el_cujo|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sahhaese|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gravypod|6 years ago|reply
It's the perfect mesh between "fake" and a real skillset.
I could also definitely see having a school leaderboard (to optimize for the best solutions against class mates) being very fun.
[+] [-] sandGorgon|6 years ago|reply
we have no computers - no laptops, no desktops. All of India is on mobile phones (usually Android). It would be awesome if future educational content is developed mobile only.
Toolkits like Flutter, AWS Lumberyard and React Native allow for ios+android games being built.
The only reason that mobile based education games for children are not as popular as they could be in the US ..is because of the fundamental concern around "smartphones==bad". I think Steam can do a lot here by allowing parental+time based locks around games.
A problem worth solving.
[+] [-] tianshuo|6 years ago|reply
LOL. Shenzhen I/O is the only Zachademics game I bought on Steam and is actually an addictive card game, with a programming game as an Easter egg.
[+] [-] chongli|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/shenzhen-solitaire/id120603777...
[+] [-] brians|6 years ago|reply
Also, these games work great with Steam Link from elsewhere in the house—no beefy GPU required.
[+] [-] azhenley|6 years ago|reply
All of our students are required to purchase their own laptops so we aren’t eligible.
[+] [-] flying_sheep|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] syockit|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moxidize|6 years ago|reply