Block Machine
Block Machine is a difficult yet poorly explained programming puzzle that combines the joy of doing homework for computer science class with the eerie satisfaction of toying around with Redstone in Minecraft.
In Block Machine, you build machines from blocks (who would have guessed!) to solve a variety of programming tasks. Block Machine’s programming model is unique: Blocks are both code and data, and all computation happens in parallel. Von Neumann would have loved this.
15+ Different Block Types to Explore
How many different ways can you find to use the basic arrow blocks? Or maybe you fancy the charged battery blocks? Wrap your head around the different capabilities and use them to build the smallest and fastest Block Machine.
25+ Challenging levels, ranging from HARD to REALLY HARD
Solve difficult programming puzzles in this Turing tarpit. Can you beat the global highscore in any of the three categories?
A Sandbox mode to mess around to your heart’s content
Build that 1000 block machine your dreamt about last night. Or don’t. It’s a sandbox!
Read More: Best Programming Logic Games.
ComPressure
One of the best zach-like games to exist thus far; A perfect rendition of simple rules leading to complex interactions. The retro pixel art and story featuring historically accurate rock star scientists lends itself well to a fun and engaging game about building the worlds first analog computer. The developer is active and responsive, adding more content fairly frequently, and the community is already both friendly and competitive.
10/10, would request lewd etchings again
– Real player with 395.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Programming Automation Games.
First and foremost: This is a positive review.
I’m unable to beat this game however (PEBKAC) though, so I’m going to caution prospective players:
This game is HARD, and the tests in each level are NOT comprehensive, nor will they give the same results when run individually versus the ‘run all tests’ results. It’s VERY possible to make solutions which pass in test-all but fail on every single test when run individually. Chasing the test scores can easily box you into a dead-end solution path.
The test score results are NOT an actual metric for how usable parts you design are, and almost every part is meant to be used later after it’s made, without any clear description of errors compounding or what to watch out for.
– Real player with 16.5 hrs in game
Screeps: World
I have played lots games over the years. have forgotten 95% of them, 4.9% of them i remember due to them being an excellent game and myself enjoying, Paradox games I love but don’t rate as in the top .1%. Only a very rare game has me remembering epic or defining moments that really set that game apart for me. EvE online is one, for creating a sandbox of such freedom, politics, warfare, resource gathering, trade, which all helps to create proper player driven stories.
The other is Screeps….which has given me my most proud moments in any game i have played. The games are of course markedly different but also surprisingly similar. Screeps like EvE has trade, crafting, factories, land ownership, politics/alliances, resource gathering, warfare, but ants instead of ships and where in EvE when u get killed you take a big loss, in Screeps it can mean game over, time to respawn from scratch……again.
– Real player with 3117.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Programming Open World Games.
Note: I am not associated with the developers in any way, I’ve just been playing a lot recently.
Screeps is a game for programmers.
But it is possible for someone without any previous programming experience to learn it with enough dedication, though I recommend at least learning some basics of programming/JavaScript from somewhere like codecademy first. And try the free tutorial before you buy the game (I am still running code that started out based on the tutorial code, 2 months later).
The game has deceptively simple visuals, but a lot of increasingly complex systems that you gain access to as you progress within the game, providing interesting challenges for your programming ability. How complex it ends up getting depends in part on how much of it you end up wanting to automate. Pretty much anything you can do, you can get your code to do for you.
– Real player with 2606.2 hrs in game
Modbox
Oh…. my…. god…. seriously, THIS is what we’ve all been wanting, like since we were born.
I’ve always wanted to make games, but coding makes me want to choke puppies. Here’s the solution, plain and simple. I’ve owned it less than a month and already have 116 hours logged, if that says anything. The developers and community are fantastic as well!
I’d go into more detail, but it’s hard to since you can literally do anything your imagination can come up with, and once you get a feel for it, you can go from an idea to a playable prototype in literally 15 minutes or less. Not only is Modbox a hell of a lot of fun in and of itself, it also shows potential to become a true next-generation game development platform.
– Real player with 204.6 hrs in game
I should have reviewed this a while ago, this is just an amazing VR sandbox game/creation/work of art and i look forward to just watching it grow and grow with updates and support from everyone.
With each world you create your mind just goes wild with possibilities of what else you can do. (cant wait for dungeon and ai…and the possibility of room escape games)
This is the 2nd time i bought this game at first i refunded and in all honesty i didnt give it a chance. I still followed it closely though and re bought when the latest update came out with rc cars and much more.
– Real player with 56.7 hrs in game
Stormworks: Build and Rescue
the game is generally good and i enjoy playing it but it has its fair amount of downsides too, but i am only making this review to complain that they changed how rocket fuel tanks looks, because it seems that they failed to realize that players have been using the rocket fuel tanks for decoration and now when it became simplified it just looks stupid. and there is no way to use the old ones. :(
– Real player with 2347.1 hrs in game
Honest review from someone who has put a huge amount of time into this game
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Badly optimised, crashes are fairly common.
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Multiplayer mostly unplayable due to desync between clients.
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Base game content is lacking after they pulled the original missions
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Original purpose of the game entirely lost and forgotten by the devs based on a single discord poll
As much as I had no issues with the weapon DLC coming as it could’ve added some real great additional content but sadly the entire focus has been on the weapons.
– Real player with 588.9 hrs in game
while True: learn()
After finishing the whole game, despite of my strong objections that I’ve written about in my original review (below), I’ve decided to change my review into thumbs up.
It took me some time to analyze my thoughts, and while I still have strong objections about inconsistency of various gameplay mechanics, the game truly has a charm, is well done and doesn’t deserve negative review, even if as a programmer purely analyzing the consistency of the gameplay I’d rate it negatively without a second thought.
– Real player with 30.3 hrs in game
Let me start off by saying that I actually really enjoyed playing the game. The challenges are fun to solve and while they generally were not very difficult, I often found myself going back to old exercises and solving them in different ways.
Nevertheless, with the current state of the game, I cannot recommend it since there are just too many flaws that I cannot overlook even for an early access title.
Many of these are easily fixable,which is why I will go over the major problems one by one so that the developer(s) can consider my feedback.
– Real player with 25.1 hrs in game
CodeSpells
I have been in the game since a relatively early alpha and honestly there is no other game quite like it. If you like the ability to truly build things, from the ground up, there is no more impressive game out there.
Now I have to warn you, this is early access:
1. Not all of the abilities that will be in the game are there yet.
2. Multiplayer is not yet there, but is on the way, and oh man am I excited.
3. The developers are working really hard on this and are some of the most communicative developers I have encountered. Just check out the forums. A_lomo is the guy coding all of it and has a significant chunk of the posts there.
– Real player with 175.0 hrs in game
CodeSpells is an interesting and unique game. The power to devise your own magic, limited only by the physical rules of the universe and your own imagination, is a truly unique experience. The art style and music are very charming and draw you into the world from the start.
The first time you wander around and use a simple push spell to launch a little red dinosaur into the sky, you will feel a sense of awe of the possibilities. Then you get a spark of an idea and bring up the spell menu. At first, you may be a little daunted by the Block-based language used to construct the spells. But after some guess and test and a little bit of practice, you will soon be creating all kinds of magic! From jumping on a rock and causing it to float and lift you off the ground, to building structures and terraforming the world around you, to changing the ebb and flow of water around you, to manipulating the elements around to ignite massive fires.
– Real player with 84.7 hrs in game
DumbBots: Hello World
A grate game 10/10
– Real player with 3.4 hrs in game
This was pretty easy & fun. (Although I am a professional game developer.) Looking forward to the full DumbBots game!
EDIT: Seriously, why doesn’t this have more positive reviews? :/
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
SYSTEM32
0xFFBADD11: SYSTEM32 has been corrupted.
In this retro operating system simulation, eliminate invaders attempting to corrupt files. Gameplay involves switching between fast-paced bullet-hell action and use of a retro terminal in order to alter the battlefield, and your character.
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Use the terminal to completely alter the battlefield and create endless customized weapons.
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Computer memory is currency. Stack your upgrades by copying files, or free up memory by deleting them.
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Deck out your PC as you loot and extract corrupted files from enemies to gain new weapons, armour, and abilities.
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Themed for programmers and computer-science lovers, but accessible to all types of players.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1360880/SYSTEM32/
LogicBots
Now I realize this might have appeal only to a specific demographic, but it’s a demographic that’s rapidly growing. Do It Yourself hobbies are on the rise and climbing faster everyday. Leading the charge is the world of electronics. I myself am a relatively new inductie. About 8 months ago, while plugging in my phone charger at work, staring at the powerstrip under my desk it occurred to me that I don’t know very much about electronics. I consider myself a learned guy, college grad with a degree in philosophy and a view that an education carries far more worth than it’s potential monetary value down the line. And I LOVE all things science so to not know much about something so pervasive as electronics didn’t sit well at all.
– Real player with 21.4 hrs in game
The limitations of what you can do with logic in this game are too severe, and once you get to the more advanced levels, the problems too complex to solve correctly within those limits. It’s not a big deal when you’re following a line or solving a maze, but once the puzzle environments get chaotic, winning a given level often involves a fair amount of reliance on luck.
Mostly it’s that you have very few spaces of logic gates, and even splitting a signal requires that place down a “gate” that splits your wire into 2 or 3 connections. You might have a sophisticated solution in mind, but you can’t afford the spaces or the gates to implement it. You can’t even afford to build a simple set/reset latch, because that requires 6+ spaces - two ANDS, two NOTs, and two wire splitters. Implementing “use the smaller of two sensor values” is usually either not possible or prohibitively expensive in space and part costs.
– Real player with 20.9 hrs in game