Exapunks (2018)
zachtronics.com
Exapunks (2018)
1–10 of 133 posts
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#2Their catalogue is well worth buying.
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#3Older, but I love me some Zachtronics.
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#4I wish Zach would start making games again. :-(
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#5This 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 them at the same time as a friend. Trash-talking about finding more optimal solutions really added to the overall fun of playing the games.
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#6bought opus magnum recently fun game, I have played exapunks a while back, it's not my cup of tea. I love programming for fun, but the language didn't gel with me. I liked their other games better, opus magnum is definitely in the top 2
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#7I 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...
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#8bought opus magnum recently fun game, I have played exapunks a while back, it's not my cup of tea. I love programming for fun, but the language didn't gel with me. I liked their other games better, opus magnum is definitely in the top 2
for anyone on the fence about these games: I'll highly recommend Opus Magnum as the starting point. It's a good intro-to-Zachtronics game because every problem can be brute forced if desired - in many of the others, you need to make some clever arrangements and logical leaps to progress, due to very limited playing field sizes.
they are quite unique and very well-made though. if you like sequence-puzzle games but are getting tired of the endless flood of Sokoban-flavored things, give it a try!
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#9For 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....
Re: Exapunks (2018)
#10I wish Zach would start making games again. :-(
The official "spiritual successor" seems to be Coincidence studio - their games in the genre being "Kaizen: A Factory Story" and the recent "U.V.S. Nirmana".