EXAPUNKS

As a part-time developer, full-time IT guy, I typically write in high level languages/environments like C# and JavaScript. I haven't met a programming game I don't like yet, but this is probably the one that has given me the most joy. Also I had learned some C and called some inline ASM back in the day, but this is far more basic than anything I've ever written. It's amazing how much focus it puts on problem solving rather than syntax. Truly enjoyable gaming. Now I just need to get some friends to invest ten minutes in the first puzzle so they can get as addicted as I've become.

A great puzzle game, about hacking and low-level programming. There are 35 problems to solve plus a few challenges vs AI. The problems are well-thought and fun to solve, for who like that sort of things. The last one is a real treat. The programming is very simple and doesn't require any prior knowledge, it's very much like assembly language. It's very well done, easy and allows you to focus on the main concepts without having to write long programs. Two PDF documents are provided with the specifications of the "cpu" and information on different platforms to hack; they're presented like "zines" of the hacking culture, with news and articles. As in all their games, solving the problem shows where you stand in execution time, program size and network usage vs other players with histograms. This is a real trap because it's tempting to spend a lot of time optimizing to get a good position. That's how I ended up spending 40 hours on the game ;) There is a short story, which wasn't necessary but provides a nice thread to the game, along with a few other extras. Quite polished overall, it's the second-best of their games after Opus Magnum for the presentation, but my favourite for the gameplay.

I've been a developer for 20 years and have spent plenty of time in low-level languages like x86 assembly. With that background, this game was really intuitive to me - the basic operations available for your EXAs are the ones available in a simple processor, so I had the advantage of a shallow learning curve to understand the tools given to me. As for the puzzles - the tutorial was trivially simple, but did a good job demonstrating the concepts. Once I got into the game, the puzzles did make me thing... originally it was about optimization, but there are definitely some challenging ones that require you to think recursively, etc. I'll probably try to get my kids into this game to help them practice thinking like a programmer, but I can definitely see how some people could get frustrated. I'm really enjoying it, but it's probably not for everyone.

This is a brilliant Zachtronics game and hands down the best programming puzzle / problem solving game that I've played. I also love the aesthetic and the 90s modem punk theme, not to mention the amazing soundtrack. It all ties together really well.

Very good when you want to give your brain a hard time.