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The hardest computer game of all time

276 points| tptacek | 12 years ago |slate.com | reply

63 comments

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[+] kibwen|12 years ago|reply
For a more modern entrant in the genre of games that are secretly programming, I can't recommend Spacechem enough:

http://www.spacechemthegame.com/

Surely a bit less difficult than Robot Odyssey, but immensely enjoyable nonetheless. I finally forced myself to uninstall it after spending waaaay too much time hyperoptimizing my solutions against the online leaderboard... it was rather addicting. :)

[+] agrona|12 years ago|reply
I had a discussion with the creator about beating the last level. I had a solution that solved 95% of it, but I have no idea if it was close to working. Zachary confessed he hadn't beaten it either, but he did prove that it was possible.

On another note, the histograms you get after beating a level are the best high score screen implementation I have ever seen. I gush over them whenever I get the chance.

[+] Claudus|12 years ago|reply
I actually quit playing SpaceChem because the difficulty of the puzzles progressed to the point where I felt I should be getting paid to solve them.
[+] Groxx|12 years ago|reply
SpaceChem is one of my most-used examples for "this is what happens when you take a game mechanic and optimize it to infinity". Amazing depth and complexity and a really long play-through that stays interesting. And then that leaderboard pops up and makes mockery of your past hour of work, egging you on to beat the curve somewhere. I love it.
[+] petercooper|12 years ago|reply
Fascinating! After reading this I was encouraged to see if anyone had covered the game on YouTube and found a guy who did a whole let's play series on it while explaining what he was doing and how the puzzles worked. Part 1 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJeseZEZn6Y for anyone curious.
[+] midas007|12 years ago|reply
Rarely does a game from that era have that much complexity, and in CGA. Wow.

Also, an ASCII guide to gates:

         output  input(s)

                +
     NOT   --o< |--
                +

               -+--
     OR    --(  ( 
               -+--

               -+--
     NOR  --o(  ( 
               -+--

              --+--
     AND   --(  |
              --+--

              --+--
    NAND  --o(  |
              --+--

               - +--
     XOR   --(  (( 
               - +--

               - +--
    XNOR  --o(  (( 
               - +--
{C,P,N}MOS transistor implementations are exercises for the reader. :)
[+] m-photonic|12 years ago|reply
Apparently it's an Apple II game, not a CGA game. I was fooled too though.
[+] shabble|12 years ago|reply
A similar (and undoubtably simpler, although still often infuriating) but still fun logic/programming game is Manufactoria[1].

Spoiler: Vg'f onfvpnyyl cebtenzzvat n uggcf://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Gnt_flfgrz

[1] http://pleasingfungus.com/Manufactoria/

[+] KVFinn|12 years ago|reply
The modern version is probably what kids are doing iwth Redstone in Minecraft:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc6spHvGPtQ

[+] chii|12 years ago|reply
i love how minecraft has this redstone system. the latest update also added a cloning command, so you no longer need to repeatedly make the same circuts again and again - you can carry a command block, and click a button to clone a circut/place it, leading to better abstraction.
[+] busterarm|12 years ago|reply
I _LOVED_ playing Robot Odyssey as a kid.

I've always been surprised how obscure it is. Never did clear the thing but I finished at least 80% of it before I was 14. I must be a lot dumber now.

Edit: I just gave GATE a try. Ugh, I can't get past level 15.

[+] busterarm|12 years ago|reply
Make it 20. lol
[+] ChuckMcM|12 years ago|reply
Oh I enjoyed this game when it came out. It was what convinced me I had made the right choice to get an EE degree rather than "just" a CS degree. I really wanted to connect programs to thrusters, not just subroutines.
[+] mcphilip|12 years ago|reply
Same here. I was 8 or 9 years old and couldn't understand how chips worked. They were just sort of magic to me, so I wired all my solutions without chips. It required a massive mess of logic gates to solve things like the Ventilation Shaft and Minefield puzzles in level 4.

The signals puzzle in level 5 was as far as I could get... but it got me hooked on algorithmic problem solving.

Edit: to get an idea of the complexity of the puzzles, here's a link to a walkthrough of level 4:

http://mysite.verizon.net/thomasfoote/DQ/id28.htm

[+] jfoutz|12 years ago|reply
Robot odyssey was hard. I got the third robot, but never actually finished.

But man the hitchhiker's guide text game was impossibly hard.

[+] eludwig|12 years ago|reply
(From memory - SPOILER!)

>Take tea

   You cannot take that.
>I

   You have:
    
     No tea
>Drop No tea

   Taken.
Brilliant! :D
[+] drharris|12 years ago|reply
1000 times yes. Back in 7th grade I'd beaten all the zorks and countless other adventures. Never did manage to figure out HGTTG. It's my white whale.
[+] Sweyla|12 years ago|reply
Really cool. I hadn't seen this game before, but the idea is dear to my heart since a few years back I developed a similar iOS app called Circuit Coder. Sorry for the shameless plug, but if you're into games like this, it might be worth knowing about.
[+] pudquick|12 years ago|reply
Just wanted to give a quick reply – I purchased your app when it first came out and I love it to death.

Thank you for that!

[+] jsilence|12 years ago|reply
Never played the game, but reading about this reminded me about how awesome my life is. There are so many great games and other resources out there. I just started to brush up my math on Khan Academy for fun.

While it is commonplace to complain about the youth an how spoiled they all are we should remember that young people today have a plethora of ressources at their hands and if pointed into the direction of the nearest hackerspace, or community garden or similar open and encouraging environment, they can do and learn whatever they want.

All we as parents and grown ups have to do is to point them to these opportunities and to encourage them to explore their talents.

[+] ANTSANTS|12 years ago|reply
Wow, thanks for posting this. I read about this game on Micah's blog a few years ago and while I had forgotten the name until now, it's been stuck in my mind ever since. Maybe I'll actually give it a shot this time!
[+] ianbicking|12 years ago|reply
Inspired, I tried DroidQuest, but can't get figure out the controls. I feel like I'm missing something really dumb, but all I can do is move around the starting menu, how do I select something?
[+] guspe|12 years ago|reply
Try the tutorials. Instead of entering Robotropolis sewer, just head down and start with "Robot Anatomy".
[+] barbs|12 years ago|reply
There's a readme.txt included with the game :)
[+] sea6ear|12 years ago|reply
This is probably the game that had the most impact on my interest in computers as a kid.

I think all we had access to were cracked versions in Juneau, Alaska where I grew up (I remember it as a "Black Bag Crack"), so I don't think it was possible to finish the version I played. Regardless, in 4th grade I loved it, but I don't think I actually got that far.

However, I realized later that it had given me the foundation of my understanding of digital logic. It's kind of awesome when I think about that.

[+] platz|12 years ago|reply
Another tough one is englishcountrytune [1] from stephen lavelle

[1]http://www.englishcountrytune.com/

[+] chii|12 years ago|reply
i have a friend who's crazy about that game - it's more a spatial reasoning puzzle than logic based (ala, building a circuit).
[+] jaskew|12 years ago|reply
This game also helped define me. I remember running around 5th grade thinking in my head 'beep pause pause beep beep pause'.

I created a parallel to serial and back set of chips to create a remote control system to get through the invisible maze level.

I played this on either a Tandy color computer 2 or 3 ... not sure which. I wonder how many engineers/programmers this game created. Such great memories.

[+] thearn4|12 years ago|reply
I was almost certain that this would be about QWOP.
[+] userbinator|12 years ago|reply
I'm one of those weird guys who thinks this game would be a whole lot more fun if all you had were NAND gates.