I wish Zach would start making games again. :-(
Exapunks (2018)
11–20 of 133 posts
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#12This is one of my all time favorite games. It and Shenzhen I/O do a wonderful job of capturing the essence of what makes programming fun and put them into a game. My biggest surprise from playing EXAPUNKS is how futile it is to try and pre-optimize a solution. I had to remind myself time and again to solve the puzzle first, then try and try and optimize it. While the games are fun on their own, I recommend playing th…
> capturing the essence of what makes programming fun and put them into a game.
They definitely straddle there line between "those is a fun video game" and "it looks too much like my job" for people in the industry, but there's a whole genre of workplace simulators for doing other people's jobs vicariously. A semi truck driver would see playing a semi truck simulator in the same way, but American Truck Simulator is quite popular. Anyway, play Zachatronics games if you find them fun, but if you don't, then, uh, don't feel bad about not playing them.
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#13For those who don't know -- while Zachtronics is no longer making games, Zach Barth is still active now under the company Coincidence Games. They just game out with a spacecraft engineering puzzle game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2536720/UVS_Nirmana/?cura... .
Without specifically looking into it but just going off of Steam releases and headline, I'd assumed Zachtronics closing was Zach Barth leaving the scene, and the company that made Kaizen etc were some of his former colleagues continuing on without him.
But apparently the Kaizen-making company is still Zach Barth?
So what was Zachtronics closing then? Him changing his mind and coming back a year later? Why throw away the brand? As cringingly shallow as that sentence was to type, a new "Zachtronics" game was a reflexive auto-buy for many people.
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#14[deleted]
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#15Reminds me of one of my favorite games: Hacknet (https://hacknet-os.com - https://store.steampowered.com/app/365450/Hacknet/). Likely contributed in a meaningful way to me becoming a programmer. I think I have Zachtronic's SHENZHEN I/O on my wishlist—will have to check out his whole catalog.
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#16I wish Zach would start making games again. :-(
He never stopped, he’s just under a different label: https://coincidence.games/ They’ve released two Zach-likes, Kaizen and UVS Nirmana. Blatant self promotion, but if you want the full story, he chatted to me about it on Software Engineering Daily after the release of Kaizen: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2025/12/18/designing-in...
This is an excellent interview; thanks for posting it.
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#17For those who don't know -- while Zachtronics is no longer making games, Zach Barth is still active now under the company Coincidence Games. They just game out with a spacecraft engineering puzzle game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2536720/UVS_Nirmana/?cura... .
Without specifically looking into it but just going off of Steam releases and headline, I'd assumed Zachtronics closing was Zach Barth leaving the scene, and the company that made Kaizen etc were some of his former colleagues continuing on without him. But apparently the Kaizen-making company is still Zach Barth? So what was Zachtronics closing then? Him changing his mind and coming back a year later? Why throw away…
Zachtronics wrapped up because they all got a bit burned out by the yearly release pace, and Zach tried to become a teacher. He didn’t like it, and when the rest of the team continued making games, he joined up with them and thus Coincidence. Further down the discussion I shared a podcast where he tells the story.
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#18For those who don't know -- while Zachtronics is no longer making games, Zach Barth is still active now under the company Coincidence Games. They just game out with a spacecraft engineering puzzle game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2536720/UVS_Nirmana/?cura... .
Without specifically looking into it but just going off of Steam releases and headline, I'd assumed Zachtronics closing was Zach Barth leaving the scene, and the company that made Kaizen etc were some of his former colleagues continuing on without him. But apparently the Kaizen-making company is still Zach Barth? So what was Zachtronics closing then? Him changing his mind and coming back a year later? Why throw away…
Maybe he sold his company, or never completely owned the name himself?
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#19Their catalogue is well worth buying. https://store.steampowered.com/developer/zachtronics
"Eliza" is a bit unusual for Zachtronics as it's not a programming/puzzle game but a visual novel. But it's excellent and I think it's one of their most under-appreciated games. It's well-written, well-acted, and very prescient. Highly recommended!
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Without specifically looking into it but just going off of Steam releases and headline, I'd assumed Zachtronics closing was Zach Barth leaving the scene, and the company that made Kaizen etc were some of his former colleagues continuing on without him. But apparently the Kaizen-making company is still Zach Barth? So what was Zachtronics closing then? Him changing his mind and coming back a year later? Why throw away…
Zachtronics wrapped up because they all got a bit burned out by the yearly release pace, and Zach tried to become a teacher. He didn’t like it, and when the rest of the team continued making games, he joined up with them and thus Coincidence. Further down the discussion I shared a podcast where he tells the story.
I understand why he might not want to and hope I would have the character to do similarly in his place, but they should really lead with "by Zach Barth" rather than "from the original Zachtronics team", which still sounds great, but tbh at least for me bumped it from "buy and play immediately" to "wishlist".
From other comments in this thread, it seems I am not the only one who misinterpreted that as not including Zach himself