Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Exapunks (2018)

zachtronics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 133 posts

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#71

Post by bspammer »

bobbytheblkbear wrote: post #64
jawarner wrote: post #9

For 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... .

This is also an advertisement. I think it's sporting to pay for advertising and not sporting to try and sneak it in on people.

The person who submitted this doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Zachtronics, why are you assuming it’s an ad?

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#73

Post by matusp »

Eji1700 wrote: post #30

Always wish Exa could scale a little more. I understand that it's supposed to stay at the low level of coding, but when i realized unfolding loops was a very valid way to improve your score, I learned a lot, and also realized it's not quite for me. All the joys of code reuse (as silly as that might sound) do get kinda lost in the game. I still loved it, but I'd kill for a sequel that was a little higher level on the…

The thing is, you can play it in any way you like. You don't have to optimize for speed at all if you don't enjoy it

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#74

Post by faizshah »

computerliker wrote: post #31
krispykrem wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is something I (Zach) wrote up a while ago in an attempt to explain it: > Back in 2016, we sold Zachtronics to a company called Alliance, who we worked for as employees and made all the Zachtronics games from SHENZHEN I/O onward. In 2022 we stopped working for them and started a new studio called Coincidence, which we own and run as a sort of co-op that allows us to work on projects together, or not together, or…

Hi Zach, Fortune’s Foundation is my favorite game ever. Thank you!

My favorite is 20th Century Food Court in Last Call BBS. Some of the other games remind me too much of work (I’ve bought all of them including the coincidence card games but I have only beaten this one), whereas this one reminds me of fun times I had making synths in Logic and VCV Rack for fun. Highly recommend!

I always wished they would make a management or simulation game, I think 90% of all programmers play Paradox games or Tycoon games etc. and I know their take on it would be amazing.

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#75

Post by unsnap_biceps »

yoyohello13 wrote: post #22
fragmede wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 q…

Too true. I used to absolutely love Zachtronics games. Then I became a professional programmer and I just can’t play the programming themed ones anymore. Kind of a shame because TIS-100 is what made me want to be a programmer in the first place.

As an older engineer, I love the Zachtronic games because they're pure development and I don't have to drive consensus or herd cats.

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#76

Post by BretonForearm »

bspammer wrote: post #70
saghm wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It's not clear that this happened here, but I could imagine that someone successful enough not to need the money might literally prefer to have their work evaluated on its own merits…

Listening to the podcast linked elsewhere in this thread, it sounds like he’s not at all reached the level of financial independence to indefinitely fund future projects. In fact the only game that went moderately viral (Opus Magnum) is not owned by him at all. This is really disappointing to me as many of his games are some of my favourite games of all time and I assumed he’d be set for life off them. I guess the ta…

If I was Notch I'd send a meagre 10 million or so Zach's way out of gratitude. Karma is a thing.

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#77

Post by mrkrntmtkt »

j-pb wrote: post #48
krispykrem wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is something I (Zach) wrote up a while ago in an attempt to explain it: > Back in 2016, we sold Zachtronics to a company called Alliance, who we worked for as employees and made all the Zachtronics games from SHENZHEN I/O onward. In 2022 we stopped working for them and started a new studio called Coincidence, which we own and run as a sort of co-op that allows us to work on projects together, or not together, or…

You don't know how much more vibrant the world is knowing that you still make games in it. Thank you for all of those hours. (And making the tools that help me teach my apprentices.)

[dead]

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#78

Post by andai »

jawarner wrote: post #9

For 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... .

This is the guy who invented Minecraft.

He now appears to be inventing 0x10c? ;)

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#79

Post by lostdog »

unsnap_biceps wrote: post #75
yoyohello13 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too true. I used to absolutely love Zachtronics games. Then I became a professional programmer and I just can’t play the programming themed ones anymore. Kind of a shame because TIS-100 is what made me want to be a programmer in the first place.

As an older engineer, I love the Zachtronic games because they're pure development and I don't have to drive consensus or herd cats.

I should set up a LARP where 30 people solve TIS-100 together

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#80

Post by enneff »

jf wrote: post #5

This 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…

I had a great evening with a friend playing through TIS-100 together. We plugged in two keyboards and mice so we didn't have to pass them back and forth.
Post reply on HN