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Zach-Like comes to Steam free with loads of game-like extras
Zach-like, the book about Zachlikes by Zach Barth, creator of the genre, is now free albeit notably less papery now. Zachtronics's previously Kickstarter-exclusive book was a collection of design documents from the creator of Spacechem, Opus Magnum, Infinifactory and many more, showing just how he engineers his puzzles. Now anyone can read a digital version for free, and it comes bundled with a pile of his…
Zachtronics book Zach-Like shows how the puzzle sausage gets made
I reckon most of the RPS Treehouse gang love us some Zachlikes, since well before Alice Prime coined the term in 2016 in reference to Shenzhen I/O. Puzzlemeister Zach Barth likes the term too, as he's borrowed it for the title of his book. Currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter (500% funded in one day), Zach-Like shows the workings and the processes behind his practical puzzlers. There's design docs…
Feature: "I'm in"
It’s pretty obvious that the excellent Exapunks is a game about hacking. Specifically, it’s a game about programming viruses and sending them into networked systems to monkey around with data, set in a great alternative 90s Wired cyberworld of PC cases flashed with black and red decals and zines set in Apple Garamond. For its makers, though, Exapunks is a game about limitations. Its format…
Hack the planet in Exapunks from Opus Magnum & Shenzhen I/O studio Zachtronics
Exapunks is the next game from prolific puzzle-meister Zach Barth and his little studio Zachtronics, creators of the likes of Opus Magnum, Infinifactory and Spacechem. Set in an alternate 1997, Exapunks is about cyberpunk hacking, programming viruses called EXAs (EXecution Agents) to carry out your will, whether that's tweaking a game on an alt-history Game Boy or robbing a bank. It's hitting early access on…
The age of machines has begun. I'm not talking about world conquering, human enslaving robots from the Matrix or what have you, nor the warped logic of paperclip-producing AIs. I'm talking about clunky factory lines producing wizard-viagra ('stamina' potions), and cobbled together contraptions that eventually churn out stain-removers. Now that I think about it, those were two unfortunate examples to use next to each other.…
Feature: Listen while running
Podcast: Into The Breach, Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds and “running away”
Cowardice is a virtue. So says the team on this week's RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. That's because our theme is "running away" - games that encourage you to flee from danger, or that give you a choice between fight and flight. Adam will run from the soldiers of Arma or the post-apocalyptic antagonists of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Brendan will scarper from poor odds in For…
I am raising my head from the alchemy desk to tell you: Opus Magnum is out now and it is good. It's the new puzzle game from Zachtronics which crept up on us this week. This studio’s puzzlers have a definite flavour to them. They’re about fiddling with machines, hacking together a solution out of strange gadgets and mental duct tape before revealing a loudly-ticking…
Is there any joy like the humble Zachlike? Don’t answer that. Zach Barth, creator of head-scratchers like Spacechem and SHENZHEN I/O, continues his slow march towards filling the planet earth with intricately complex puzzle games. His development studio has just announced Opus Magnum [official site] a game of dark machinery and darker alchemy in which you must use a “transmutation engine” to create “vital remedies,…
When I saw that Shenzhen Solitaire - the solitaire minigame spun off from Shenzhen I/O - was out for MS-DOS on floppy disks I'll admit I nearly consigned it to the novelty promo pile along with emails about cassette mix tapes or my friend whose response to new music is always "Yes, but can I listen to it on my Discman?". HOWEVER! It gets more…
Feature: Infinicraft
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. No, neither have I. Infiniminer was a team-based game in which players competed to collect more minerals than their opponents in a blocky, randomly-generated cavern. But during development in 2009 the source code was leaked by hackers. In the wake of new modified…
Feature: And which games might do it...
if(desire_to_program > 10) continue; else return; When I tell people I'm a programmer, I get that look. The glazed eyes, the polite smile, the clear desire to change topic. If I'm lucky, I'll get pitched on an idea for the next killer mobile app that my conversation partner insists will make us rich; if I'm less lucky, I'll get wrangled into providing free tech support…
A proposal: puzzles games focused on assembling or programming - or both - should be called Zachlikes. Following the atom-assembling SpaceChem, production line 'em up Infinifactory, and the computer-programming TIS-100, Zach Barth and his Zachtronics have announced a new Zachlike. SHENZHEN I/O [official site] will combine assembling and programming to build circuits from components and then write code for them. It's due to hit Steam…
SpaceChem and Infinifactory creator Zach Barth has released his latest thing-making puzzle game, which sits somewhere between fiddling with chemistry and building automated factories. TIS-100 [official site] is an assembly programming puzzler, having you literally learn and write code to fix up corrupted code in the mysterious eponymous '80s computer. Yes, you do need to learn and write the TIS-100's assembly code. Computers are puzzles!…
Infinifactory [official site] is another thing-making puzzler from SpaceChem chap Zachary Barth, this time going into 3D to set up production lines manufacturing goods for cruel alien overlords. It initially launched incomplete on Steam Early Access in January, though even at the time John was really into it. Maybe you'd rather wait until it was fully finished before playing yourself. In which case, good news:…
After having folks design molecules in SpaceChem and automated plants in Infinifactory, Zachtronics are back with another puzzle game of complex systems. What comes after atoms and factories, the whole dang universe? The multiverse? Nah, you write assembly code. Today Zachtronics both announced and (sort of) released TIS-100 [official site], a game about rewriting corrupted code to fix a fictional '80s computer. It's on on…
A new game from Zach Barth is probably something to coo and poke and beam and gawp at, even as an Early Access release. His past games including the Minecraft-inspiring Infiniminer and RPS-pleasing SpaceChem, and his latest looks to combine elements of the two. Infinifactory is a sandbox puzzler about building and optimising production lines to create products to please your alien overlords. They always…
Zachtronics has linked the SpaceChem molecule to the Infiniminer molecule to create and announce their new game: Infinifactory. It's "Like SpaceChem... In 3D!" says the site, which sounds like a very good thing when you consider that SpaceChem broke the brains and captured the hearts of just about everyone at RPS who played it. There's only a little information about this new game, but it's…