Robo Instructus
I’m a noob/amateur at programming. I have had quite an experience with Python programming especially after following guides/tutorials and reading some books. The programming language syntax in this game is easy to pick up, and it reminds me a lot about Python because Python is also a language with easy to pick up/remember syntax.
This is a pretty fun programming based puzzle game so far, with some unique mechanics about the game such as whenever the robot is instructed to go forward, it will move towards the tile but veering towards its right side. Which makes sense because TRIANGLES.
– Real player with 90.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Difficult Puzzle Games.
This is a hard game, on par with TIS-100, Human Resources Machine 2, and Shenzhen I/O. However, it is hard in a different way from those other games: it poses difficult problems that demand clever algorithms rather than limiting the number of instructions that you can use (TIS-100 and Shenzhen I/O) or having to deal with parallel processing (all three). So you may like this game even if you found the other three frustrating. On the other hand, if you found those games to be at the right level of difficulty, you may find this game too easy. As always, your mileage may vary.
– Real player with 54.4 hrs in game
TOK HARDCORE
Nice little game, the levels consist of rotating pieces to make up a circuit. With a time limit for each move.
So logically working out the only possible way a piece can go and working backwards from there.
There are 60 levels, its well worth at try and great value even at the full price
– Real player with 2.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Difficult Logic Games.
Simple but elegant puzzle game. The puzzles themselves are very simple to solve, but given the limited number of moves allowed (basically you can make just a couple of mistakes) and the fact that you are on a timer make TOK mildly challenging and therfore suitable for some casual gaming if you have a couple of minutes to spare.
I wonder if this game concept would also work with procedurally generated levels? Would be especially nice if the player could choose the size of the playing field.
– Real player with 1.4 hrs in game
Monster Logic
One of the best programming games I’ve played. Lots of levels and a variety of interesting ways to solve each one.. Competitive leaderboards, the top score in some of these puzzle are already pretty crazy. You are going to have to be super creative in order to match them. There are three categories for the leaderboards and your best score in each category for the puzzle is automatically saved. (Zachtrnoics take note please)
I have played almost every programming game on steam and this is probably my second favorite. With my favorite being EXAPUNKS
– Real player with 86.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Difficult Automation Games.
First off, I was a beta tester and received the game for free.
It might be scary for those who are not particularly into programming to look at the store page and see stuff like “Based on esoteric programming languages Befunge and Trefunge”. It could make you think this game is “too niche” and not for you.
Now, I don’t know whether you’ll actually like it or not, but let me tell you this: I had never even heard of Befunge or Trefunge before playing this, and I’m not a programming enthusiast or anything. I just looked at it as a fun puzzle game with cute monsters and animations and tried to solve the levels as best I could using good old logic.
– Real player with 54.5 hrs in game
SpaceChem
What is SpaceChem?
SpaceChem is a chemistry-themed programming puzzle game (no actual chemistry or programming knowledge required).
Spacechem is moving stuff from one side of the screen to the other while rearranging it a bit.
Spacechem isn’t finding the unique solution, it’s creating your unique solution.
Spacechem is the elegance of a brilliantly simple solution.
Spacechem is the elegance of a solution you know is a terrible wall of spaghetti, but it’s your wall of spaghetti, dammit!
– Real player with 2677.8 hrs in game
When I first read about the puzzle games by Zachtronics, the promises were to good for mathematics and IT affectionate people like I consider myself so that I soon had to buy one, I didn’t wait for a sale and took SpaceChem for the simple reason of being one of the older and therefore cheaper games, Never would I have expected to play it THAT much.
After 90 hours of gameplay, which I had in less than 3 weeks, I did all the challenges, optimized some solutions in a battle with a friend and also did some of the community levels from “ResearchNet”, but I was stuck at the level “Omega-Pseudoethyne” on the next to last planet. There was just so much logic to cram into two reactors, that I tried and tried but couldn’t come up with the right approach. I watched some solutions on Youtube, but was fortunately to proud to just copy one. After putting the game aside for a few months, I tried it again and did it. The feeling of success was immense, even though the statistics that can be seen in a histogram after each level were bad.
– Real player with 137.2 hrs in game
TIS-100
TL;DR: 4/5 - Give it a try, especially if you like optimising and fiddling with code.
I’ve played a fair bit now and, to me, this is one of the best puzzlers I’ve ever played.
A few words about the gameplay in case you wonder: The game consists of 48 levels, each a programming task. Looking at the first screenshot here on Steam should show you the level SEQUENCE COUNTER. In the upper left corner you have your task. The 12 squares that take almost all of the screen are “nodes”, independent CPUs that you can program freely with up to 15 instructions each. The arrows between them are “ports” that allow you to move data between nodes. There are also input and output ports at the top and at the bottom of the screen, respectively. Your program has to stand four tests, three with predefined inputs and one with random values. You can see the given inputs and expected outputs on the left in the screenshot.
– Real player with 656.7 hrs in game
This is my second review on Steam and I felt that this game deserved it. I’ve just completed this game with 100% achievements and I’ve spent more hours on this game than obtaining 100% achievements for Dark Souls 1 & 2, but quite a number of it was probably spent falling asleep. The only thing these games have in common is that you’d be on the verge of giving up but you know they are solvable problems because many before you have done so. I studied electrical engineering and I do a fair bit of coding in my work so the workings of assembly wasn’t entirely foreign to me, and I knew the basics of debugging and using pseudo-code to formulate solutions. I’ve a few tips below:
– Real player with 172.9 hrs in game
Glyphs Apprentice
I’ve only just started to play with this game but can already see it will be addicting!!
– Real player with 170.7 hrs in game
Love the gameplay, hate the visuals.
If you like SpaceChem, you’ll like this too.
But the visuals… They took arguably the ugliest color known to man; screaming light cyan, and made every - EVERY - element this color. And wtf is up with the border of cyan doilies.
– Real player with 22.6 hrs in game
Sketchbots
It’s a great concept for a game and it’s executed on very well here; I really want to like this game, I really do. However, there are just a couple of complaints that I want addressed.
1. There’s no way to detect the orientation of other bots.
2. There’s no way to store learned information, the bot can’t create a mental map of the environment or do anything else that would require knowing more then what we just did 1 turn ago.
– Real player with 3.6 hrs in game
I really enjoy this game! I like the challenge of only being able to recall the last action instead of storing all previous actions to memory, it makes me feel like the bots are very primitive, in a good kind of way. The potential here is really huge, I could see hundreds of puzzles to play from the community one day being a thing. Speed running, do it in X challenges etc. This game deserves more love and attention!
– Real player with 3.3 hrs in game
Comet 64
I’ve been playing Comet 64 since the closed beta and this game was already wonderful!
It looks just like I have dreamed for a long time, because I’m not a big fan of visual programming. In my opinion visual programming is divorced from reality, and in Comet 64 I finally have to write code by hands, which adds immersivity.
In visual programming I mean games like Human Resource Machine , 7 Billion Humans and some others.
– Real player with 21.6 hrs in game
Alright, high-level: if you’re here, you probably know about Zachtronics and Tomorrow Corporation’s games in the programming genre. This game is good. If you like those, you’ll like this.
The system constraints are novel and challenging.
The puzzles are a good escalation of difficulty and concepts.
The vibe is 100% in line with TIS-100 and MOLEK-SYNTEZ with the retro 80s graphics, including the option to customize the colors to match your favorite system from yesteryear.
The editting UI needs some love though. This can easily be fixed in a couple of patches, but currently it’s struggling compared to the polish I’ve gotten spoiled with from the more recent Zachtronics titles.
– Real player with 19.1 hrs in game
SEN: Seven Eight Nine
another would-be-great game ruined by thinking players have all the time (and willingness) in the world to replay half the puzzles to get back to the point where they stopped (or had to stop) last time. if your trailer says 100+ puzzles, let me select them individually, not just 21 packs of 6 or so that have to be done in one go. or at the very least save my progress on the current level so I can continue there next time and/or try another unlocked level in the meantime. the game wouldn’t be any easier, only less tedious and frustrating.
– Real player with 6.9 hrs in game
This is a different type of puzzle game where you have to intuitively learn the rules through playing. I’ve not played anything like this before, but it is kind of a mix of sudoku and path games. Very intriguing and it can get quite difficult. I spent almost 2 hours trying to find the solution to the last puzzle (which I did -YAY!) and just a few seconds on some of the earlier puzzles. The concept seems simple at first, but it gets more complex as you move to higher levels. I couldn’t really describe the rules to you, but I know what they are intuitively, LOL.
– Real player with 6.3 hrs in game
SHENZHEN I/O
10/10
I had a lot of spare time over a 4 day period and 40+ hours of that time went into this game alone, nothing can describe enough how amazing this game is. The core of this game can be summed up with the phrase ‘fun embedded electronics programming’, it’s not overly complicated but will also pose a challenge to those out there who love solving puzzles or optimising code.
The game is simple to start playing, you are placed onto a dashboard with 2 main buttons ‘conceptMAIL’ and ‘Datasheets’. Your first email will ask you to read through the ‘Datasheets’ which is a printable PDF ( you don’t have to print it, but it does make referencing easier ), it’s a fairly short read and is something you can come back to if you’ve any queries or is required for your project. Once you’re finished, you can start your first lot of puzzles, which eases you into the UI and teaches you the basic principles of I/O control.
– Real player with 80.3 hrs in game
You may be wondering why I’m thumbing down a game I’ve spent over 70 hours playing. I did enjoy the game, but I simply cannot recommend it to anyone except the most hardcore fans of Zachtronics' other games. And Shenzhen I/O is the only Zachtronics game which I’ve had no desire to replay.
My biggest complaint is the size of the boards. They are unfairly small.
In Zach’s other games, constantly adding and testing parts is how I would work my way through the logic of the puzzle, step by step. You could make a big messy solution at first, and then worry about optimizing it later. But Shenzhen I/O actively discourages you from playing this way, especially after the first campaign is over. There is simply not enough room on the later boards to reasonably work with.
– Real player with 77.9 hrs in game