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Exapunks (2018)

zachtronics.com

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Re: Exapunks (2018)

#81

Post by barbs »

fragmede wrote: post #12
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…

> 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…

There's a good vice article about that very topic.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/why-do-we-play-video-games-t...

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#82

Post by fragmede »

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.

If jawarner isn't being paid to make the post, then it's not an advertisement, unless you're using a broader definition for advertisement than is commonly accepted.

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#83

Post by leoc »

optionalsquid wrote: post #49
gradstudent wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you extrapolate a bit? Why is GOG an undesirable platform to be on, especially as you seem to be fine with DRM-free releases elsewhere (which is awesome, btw) Finally, thank you for SpaceChem! Still great, even after all these years

My understanding is that GOG is not necessarily undesirable, but they are very selective: Unlike Steam or Itch, you have to convince them that it's worth their while to sell your game. And their choices of what (not) to sell are not infrequently baffling. Lots of developers have gotten burned by that, including Zachtronics

The Turing Complete dev was pretty unhappy with them and ended up leaving again despite having been accepted and making it onto the GOG store.

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#85

Post by wishfish »

fragmede wrote: post #12
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…

> 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…

There's a portion of American / European Truck Simulator's playerbase who are truckers. I've even seen a few streams from guys playing ATS/ETS in their sleeper cabs. Some of them have said the game is a way of processing the stresses in their jobs. I found that very interesting.

It's an interesting contrast to programmers and programming games. For me personally, the best way to process is to do just about anything else. Programming games are most fun when I haven't had to do much coding recently. Though sometimes, if I'm already in the flow, it's fun to play one of them and ace it since I'm already in the right mindset.

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#86

Post by avanai »

lostdog wrote: post #79
unsnap_biceps wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Make sure you get those JIRAs filed and pointed. Standup is at 10:30.

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#87

Post by rafram »

jna_sh wrote: post #51
rafram wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's up with the AI narration at the beginning? Or is it just someone with an incredibly steady voice and AI cadence? It's uncanny and weird considering that this is a podcast hosted by actual humans!

It’s not AI, that is an honest to goodness human! She reads the intro to every episode on a daily podcast, she’s just well practiced.

I'm glad!

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#88

Post by donkey_brains »

krispykrem wrote: post #29
comeonbro wrote: post #13

Earlier 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…

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…

Zach I love your games! Thank you! Keep em coming!

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#89

Post by KingMob »

krispykrem wrote: post #29
comeonbro wrote: post #13

Earlier 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…

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…

Thanks for EXAPUNKS! I love it.

Re: Exapunks (2018)

#90

Post by hakkoru »

omgbear wrote: post #33

Printing the physical zines in exapunks as a reference was very cool, and a good throwback to when games shipped with boxes and detailed manuals. Spacechem was my intro to Zachtronics, and it consumed me when it came out. The concept of instructions inside the actual work area is amazing and still makes my head spin. I consider beating Ω-Pseudoethyne one of my top coding/steam achievements. I fell off for a bit becau…

Same, I played SpaceChem in high school and it captivated me. A lot of my solutions were unoptimized sync monstrosities and the boss battles filtered me pretty hard, but man it was satisfying to figure out a solution and just watch it create the molecules. The music was amazing too, it was on my study playlist all through university.
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