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Thanks for making the thread, Black Griffon. SpaceChem is one of my favorite games ever but I actually never got any other Zachtronics stuff (other than Ironclad Tactics, but that's a different thing altogether) until Opus Magnum a few days ago because I found SpaceChem so intense that it actually scared me off a little. Intense as in it took over my brainspace in such a total, comprehensive way - I was constantly thinking up possible solutions at work and dreaming about it for weeks and weeks. After I beat it I really had to take a long break. Opus Magnum feels very different so far. Much more open-ended and free-form, and much easier due to the lack of restrictions. I think it was the right game for me to go back. I still intend to get 100% achievements in SpaceChem. At the moment I'm at 14/20. Need to solve more ResearchNet stuff and a few of the unique challenges. The one that I spent some time on a few years ago was to do Falling with two or fewer reactors. As I recall after staring at it for a while I concluded that it was Actually Impossible. And yet some people have done it. Also need to solve KOHCTPYKTOP, which is the only level in the main campaign I haven't beaten, I kinda just looked at it and nope'd out since it was optional. The weirdest one is the final level of the Australia DLC, Moustachium 608. For whatever reason I just haven't been able to do it at all, and this despite having beaten the game (without ever looking up any hints or solutions or whatever). I don't know what it is about that one level that trips me up. This is me if anyone needs another name for SpaceChem or Opus Magnum (and perhaps more in the future). I'm still working my way through the OM campaign so haven't done a lot of optimizations, but I'm not very good anyway tbh.
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Jul 11, 2020 11:55
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I'm not thrilled with the output on this (OM/Sword Alloy) - I'm sure there's a way to make it both more efficient and aesthetically pleasing - but otherwise I'm quite happy with the rest of it. I've noticed I naturally gravitate towards tight-knitted designs and optimizing for area first; I basically try to have everything as bunched up as possible. edit: I shaved off four cycles down to 133, heh. Wish they'd backport the auto-gif function to SpaceChem as the videos it generates are far less handy for sharing. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jul 11, 2020 |
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Jul 11, 2020 15:27
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One thing I still find confusing in Opus Magnum is the automatic looping / syncing / padding. Most of the time you don't have to worry about it but on occasion it just trips me up or doesn't work the way I expect it to. For one thing I think it's visually confusing to have the padding added at the end of an instruction set. If you have two sets and one has its first instruction several cycles after the first, say on cycle 10, then I think the game counts cycle 10 as the starting point for that set and adds the padding at the end to compensate, but visually I would find it a lot clearer if they both just "started" on cycle 1 and the first ten cycles for that set were just empty. And sometimes the amount of padding doesn't match what I think it should be so clearly I am not understanding something about the way it works. I dunno, I was fighting with a solution yesterday trying to get the thing to work properly as it kept jamming on the second loop (and I didn't want to just copy & paste six instances of code just to get to 6/6). The only way I managed to get it to work eventually was by adding essentially "empty" instructions to the beginning of some sets, as otherwise the padding added at the end was delaying them on the second loop. So now there are some mechanisms executing meaningless instructions at the beginning of each loop. Maybe there is a way to get it to work properly, but by the end I was so confused by the whole thing I couldn't be bothered to figure it out. Anyway... I'm at the end of chapter 4 now and although I said earlier the lack of restrictions make this game easier than SpaceChem I will say that the puzzles are now definitely getting spicier. Much like the harder puzzles in SpaceChem I find my immediate response to seeing a new puzzle is increasingly  . Even if I know I could brute force it with a massive track or whatever, my inclination is to make something that looks decent and works at least somewhat efficiently, so the restriction is self-imposed. I'm generally not very good with sandboxes - I need the game to give me something - and though Opus Magnum isn't a straight sandbox it's definitely closer to it than SpaceChem. So I'm actually surprised that I'm able to self-restrict somewhat successfully here; I suppose the histograms are a good motivator too.I know the bonus campaign does have some built-in restrictions, though, and I am looking forward to that eventually.
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Jul 13, 2020 12:03
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Llamadeus posted:It basically works like: it takes the longest cycle out of all the arms (which is the time between first and last non instructions) and pads every arm's cycle out at the ends of their loops. Okay, after reading this and looking at my solutions for a further long time I think I understand more how the jamming happened. In fact I was able to fix it without adding empty instructions and get it to actually loop properly by deleting some instructions and minding the length of each set... What remains slightly unideal is that you don't know at any given moment which instruction set is the longest, i.e. which one is being matched. So making a small tweak to what was the longest set could mean that the padding now follows a different set, which can cause a collision. You kinda do have to just count, would be nice if there was an indication. edit: I guess it's the one that doesn't have any padding, actually, so never mind. It's still kind of confusing when I try to just logic through it in my brain (like if I try to answer the question "wait, how did I actually just fix this?") but pairing the info with actually looking at the solution helps it make sense. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jul 13, 2020 |
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Jul 13, 2020 15:10
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I am  good at Opus Magnum.Timing Crystal.  I know I can shave off cycles at the top there if the second arm wasn't doing almost everything on its own, but frankly no amount of optimization would make this solution competitive, I don't think. Oh well! It works and does look kind of clean, so that's nice. edit: Also, Sigmar's Garden is insanely addictive. edit2: Been reading some interviews/AMAs with Zach and it is very funny to me that he doesn't actually solve all of the puzzles in his games, but just "makes sure they are solveable". In his GDC talk about SpaceChem he says he spent like a week designing the final puzzle, made sure it's solveable "on paper" but never actually played it through. He claims he's not that good at his own games but somehow I doubt that. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Jul 14, 2020 |
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Jul 14, 2020 20:58
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Glare Seethe posted:Timing Crystal. Cut this down by almost 400 cycles and am now second only to Stone Cold Jane Austen on my list.  This version is uglier, though. Also beat the main campaign in general so now off to the bonus stuff.
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Jul 16, 2020 20:39
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Yeah I love that too. It's kind of a gorgeous game in general really, probably the prettiest Zachtronics.
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Jul 16, 2020 20:58
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Goddamn, the Production Alchemy puzzles do not mess around. I am definitely getting exposed here as a mere hobbyist rather than pro alchemist.
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Jul 18, 2020 15:40
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It's really tough to make something that looks elegant in the appendix in Opus Magnum. This one I just did certainly is not, but it's the last puzzle and surprisingly placed me in the second highest column for cycles, which I was kind of pleased about. I guess it's the Journal next, though I might go back to some earlier chapters first and see what I can do better. Reconstructed Solvent: 
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Jul 23, 2020 17:45
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Yeah it's taken me a long long time to realize I can actually close/loop tracks so I'm not good with them yet. Likewise using multiple, parallel tracks is something I only started doing recently and in these constricted puzzles there usually isn't much room for it, but it really speeds up solutions and looks cool so I should go back and redo some stuff probably.
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Jul 23, 2020 18:14
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  edit: Wasn't too bad after all...  I could probably drop that arm at the top-right now that I look at it, to save some gold. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Aug 12, 2020 |
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Aug 12, 2020 17:44
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Glare Seethe posted:Also need to solve KOHCTPYKTOP, which is the only level in the main campaign I haven't beaten, I kinda just looked at it and nope'd out since it was optional. Having now solved every level in Opus Magnum, including the entire Journal, I've gone back to SpaceChem to do this and, oh my loving god, it's so much harder. Granted I'm way out of practice and it took me a bit to get re-acquainted, and also this specific level is really hard in general, but still. In the time it took me to build two reactors I could've probably done four OM levels or something, and I still only have the vaguest idea/plan for the overall solution. I don't even get my beloved flip-flops for this one. edit: Beat that, but now I'm trying Moustachium 608 again and it's the most infuriating thing. I don't know why I can't figure it out. It's like my brain is fundamentally unsuited to solving this one specific level, not even in a hideously inefficient way, just like, at all. I just cannot do it. Why. edit2: Beat Moustachium 608. Thank you insomnia. Wild that the best I could manage was ~2650 cycles while the leaderbords show me that ~350 and even better is common. But at least mine is way cheaper on symbols than the average. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Aug 23, 2020 |
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Aug 20, 2020 20:27
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Rynoto posted:Wildly inefficient, apparently! Not to worry, mine is - and I am not kidding - literally twice as inefficient as yours. See that very last, tiny column, that's where I'm at. This is one of those levels where optimization was not a factor for me, I'm just happy to get through it one way or another. The big bottleneck is unbonding the first molecule in the first reactor, everything is dependent on doing that quickly and I did it very... let's be generous, and say methodically. One other achievement I had left was Σ-Ethylene in under 6000 cycles, and in contrast I was really happy with how that one came out, am actually on top in cycles among friends. After spending some time on ResearchNet I now only have one achievement left, which is to do Falling with only two reactors. Without flip-flops this seems almost impossible, but I imagine I'll get there eventually... I have one idea but I suspect I might be too fixated on it and it's preventing me from approaching the problem from other angles.
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Aug 27, 2020 09:07
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  Getting all the achievements in this game has been an actual goal of mine and I've put it off for years to the point of thinking I might never go back to it, so I'm fairly pleased with myself at the moment. Incidentally, I'm really surprised SpaceChem only has 2000 Steam reviews. When it came out in 2011 it made a fairly sizeable splash, I thought, and it was right at the start of the indie game boom. I know these are niche games but I genuinely would've expected it to have far more reviews considering how well-known and highly-rated it is, and the timing of its release. It's also been very cheap for a very long time now so most people have had a chance to grab it. And Steam reviews were already a thing in 2011. But only 2000, really? Anyway, if anyone here has somehow managed to not own SpaceChem (and wants to play it, ideally), I've had a spare copy of it + DLC in my Steam inventory for years, so let me know. Also Zachtronics stuff is discounted over at Humble right now as part of their End of Summer sale.
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Aug 28, 2020 15:17
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Something a bit different this time around, looks like: https://twitter.com/zachtronics/status/1320774950857236480 quote:The year is 1983 and the United States of America must defend itself from an enemy it could have never imagined— an America from an alternate universe that will stop at nothing to seize control of the country’s heartland!
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Oct 26, 2020 18:52
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Llamadeus posted:An interview with Zach, he mentions that the next Zachtronics game will be the last one. This is a bummer. I didn't watch the interview, did he elaborate why? edit: Wait it was timestamped? I didn't notice. Maybe that's from when I skimmed through it quickly, dunno. edit2: I guess cause he's going into teaching? Fair enough! Happy for the games we got, some all-timers in there. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Apr 17, 2022 |
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Apr 17, 2022 18:47
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Humble's got a programming game bundle going on. $10 for three Zachtronics games and four other titles.
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Sep 6, 2022 06:40
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Sway Grunt posted:Humble's got a programming game bundle going on. $10 for three Zachtronics games and four other titles. I picked this bundle up and played through Human Resource Machine over the past couple of days. It was fun but I definitely got the sense that the programming elements are much more explicit in it than in Zach's games. Granted I haven't yet played Shenzhen I/O or TIS-100 which I think are the ones based on assembly language? But the abstraction in SpaceChem or Opus Magnum makes those a lot more compelling and I think it's easier to work through or visualize the problem in a puzzle if you don't have a programming background (and the UI is much better). They also feel a lot more open-ended, or at least the open-endedness is expressed better visually. In HRM I was doing fine up until the last few levels where I hit a brick wall, and I straight up copied a solution for the final level off a Steam guide just to get the credits to roll, which I feel a little guilty about (but I 100%'ed SpaceChem without ever looking up a hint so I paid my dues dammit). Even looking it over step by step I fundamentally do not understand what's happening or why. Apparently it's just building a sorting algorithm which I guess any actual programmer would ace in a few minutes. I'm hoping the Zachtronics titles that are based on assembly are more creative and open and less "course assignments" but I actually think I'll save those for later and go straight into 7 Billion Humans next. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 20:24 on Sep 10, 2022 |
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Sep 10, 2022 19:56
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I think the presentation and the little bits of story / atmosphere of Zachtronics titles definitely help so I'm hopeful for Shenzhen and the others. At the very least they're visually interesting to look at. I'm sure one could map a lot of the design ideas and mechanics of SpaceChem to actual programming or math terms (like I guess a sensor is just a simple "if else" clause. And a flip-flop's probably some kind of well-known mathematical function?). But it just helps that in-game it looks and feels different and you're doing wild alien poo poo with it. I finished 7 Billion Humans today and it was much more fun than HRM I thought, the mechanics were more to my liking (less math, basically). But it's still just a lot of numbers and flow charts. Still had to brute force a few puzzles (by, uh, lemme look at some programming terminology... loop unrolling? aka doing everything manually) and am thankful they give you five level skips for the campaign otherwise I'd still be in there. edit: man I just really love SpaceChem. Maybe cause it was my first Zachtronics title, but it just rules. In my top 10 of all time probably. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Sep 12, 2022 |
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Sep 12, 2022 20:09
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May 17, 2023 20:44
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Stickman posted:Unless you’re deliberately adding with boring loops, I’m honestly more amazed by a solution that fits within the puzzle constraints, takes that many cycles, and still finishes than I am with yet another boring unrolled loop! It was the early level where you hack your own arm, but I was still finding my feet with the game then. You won't see that score because I've since cut it down to 241. That solution wasn't anything interesting unfortunately, just me not knowing what I was doing at all - I basically forgot that you can use more than one EXA and also didn't realize you could just write a specific value/number directly to a register rather than modify the register's existing value. So I used ADDI/SUBI X 1 X to slowly work my way up/down every time a value was out of the required range then sent my single EXA to the port and back instead of using the M register. I'm now kind of stuck on the level where you unlock the Redshift. But the game is very cool. I like digging through the zines for clues. Though optimizing seems a little less gratifying here than in SpaceChem or Opus Magnum because the visual aspect is not as strong. edit: This level (hacking into the Redshift to get the SDK) feels like an insane difficulty spike. I have three problems to solve here and have been wracking my brain for the better part of two days, and have solved none of them. The bit about macro instructions in the second issue of the zine seems relevant to the first problem but I've been unable to translate that into actual working code. The par size for histograms being 50 tells me I'm clearly missing something, too. I might have to look up a hint else I risk this being the end of the road I think. edit2: With my solution currently at 3084/50 size I have solved the first two problems. Just need to seal the deal somehow. Though even if I succeed I'm not sure I have learned the right lessons from this level. I guess we'll see. Sway Grunt fucked around with this message at 20:58 on May 20, 2023 |
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May 20, 2023 06:17
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