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General discussion (archive)Release: Spacechem(93 posts)(93 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 24, 2012
The Chemistry-Based Spiritual Successor to The Incredible Machine.

SpaceChem, a brain-bending puzzler that challenges you to create convoluted chemicals in a nuclear furnace, is available on GOG.com right now for only $9.99, and we’re including the 63 Corvi DLC for free!

Spacechem is an indie puzzle game that depicts pseudo-scientific chemical reactions in a reactor. As an engineer, the player will conduct increasingly more difficult experiments that both challenge and entertain in a way unexpected by a puzzle-game and especially a chemistry-based puzzle game. Everyone knows that SpaceChem is only pseudo-science, but building the atomic reactor in the actually feels like you’re only a few steps away from getting a Ph. D. in helium-, hydrogen- and stuff-based reactions.

SpaceChem was named the best indie game of 2011 by [url=http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/39187/Gamasutras_Best_Of_2011_Top_10_Indie_Games.php" target="_blank]Gamasutra[/url] and that is for a reason: it’s a mind-twisting, smartly-crafted puzzler with an interesting background story that will either force you to spend countless hours finding the proper solution or spend those countless hours slapping the atoms and waldos in random order in hope of something finally clicking (like you did with TIM). This game challenges your abilities to apply logic in a creative manner to problem solve, using nested loops and what are actually simple programming concepts to create very complex molecules. The challenges provided by Zachtronic Industries (which include the game + more levels from 63 Corvi DLC) do not require a Nobel prize, but they’re only short of that, and guarantee a high amount of challenge.

In short, SpaceChem is a fantastic puzzle game, difficult and joyful, and is now available on GOG.com for only $9.99.
Posted April 25, 2012
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Wishbone: I'm sorry, did I say something nasty about your mother?
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peke: Is that the best comeback you could come up with? Oh, the engineers these days...
It wasn't a "comeback", it was a polite inquiry as to why you suddenly jumped in and delivered a personal attack on me in the middle of an otherwise polite conversation.
Posted April 25, 2012
And, again: no Linux and OS X versions => I'm not interested.
Posted April 25, 2012
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mgol: And, again: no Linux and OS X versions => I'm not interested.
Same here :) buy it from the devs website for 10$ and get the Win/Linux/Mac version. Too bad, GOG is already great, but this is a bit disappointing!
Posted April 25, 2012
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mgol: And, again: no Linux and OS X versions => I'm not interested.
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guangling: Same here :) buy it from the devs website for 10$ and get the Win/Linux/Mac version. Too bad, GOG is already great, but this is a bit disappointing!
Yep. When there is only a Windows version then I don't care, there is not much choice. When there is a DOS version I have no problem with installing game via Wine and then purging its internal DOSBox files and using my own. But when the game is developed with multiple platforms in mind and sold for all three at the same time, for the same price (and not just ported later, sold separately itp., as with Linux Game Publishing) then I don't see GOG's Windows-only offer tempting.

I guess I'll restrict myself here to old games or new ones that indeed have only a Windows version. Which mostly excludes indies.

I paid $10 for Botanicula (and bought one copy for my sister, too) at Humble Botanicula Debut so I don't feel I got into this ugly situation between Amanita & GOG; after all, here I'd pay even less if I pre-ordered. But I'm getting a little off-topic here.
Posted April 25, 2012
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JudasIscariot: We still have Thursday so who knows what will come out?
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keeveek: I don't buy every old game that is released on GOG, so only one game a week would minimize my purchases even further :P
On the flip side, if yourself and others with similar habits to yourself bought more GOG games then GOG would have more capital and theoretically could afford to purchase more game licenses and thus release more games each week. Food for thought.
Posted April 25, 2012
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mclem: Think about exactly why you're losing the level; it's *not* simply because the pipe is clogged, it's because the clogged pipe means that an atom will stay present in a reactor longer than expected, ultimately likely resulting in a collision when the other WALDO wanders off and does its own thing.
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Wishbone: You know, you're probably right. But that means that you have to have a sync point after every output point. Bummer.
Been following this dialogue.

I'm a programmer too. Specifically, I worked in supercomputing. The game actually has thread synchronization completely right.

It's very easy, in a multithreaded program, to write a case where one thread will finish its work before the others. If this happens, most of the time, you want that thread to stop and wait (Sync). If this happens consistently, you want to move some work from the heavier thread to the lighter one.

Optimizing a thread that's already running fast will give your program zero net benefit. It'll just mean that that thread gets to the "wait" point faster and then has to wait for longer for the other threads to catch up.

If you have a situation where one pipe is filling up and leading to a shortage in another pipe, your machine is broken. "Pessimizing" the machine that's filling the pipe is a possible fix (and it WILL NOT make your machine run slower overall, since your machine was already bottlenecked on the slower station already), but the better fix is to optimize the machine that draws from the filled pipe, which will make your full machine not only work, but work faster than you thought it would.

If Reactor [A] outputs to and [C], and [C] runs slower than to the point where the pipe to [C] clogs and causes [A] to fail, the elegant solution is to make [C] run faster, while the "cheap hack" solution is to make [A] run slower (including by adding syncs so that [A] shuts down when the [C] pipe is full. The "but it passes all the test cases" lazy hack solution is to make the pipe longer so that you reach the objective before it clogs. :P
Posted April 26, 2012
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keeveek: I don't buy every old game that is released on GOG, so only one game a week would minimize my purchases even further :P
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LCAWC: On the flip side, if yourself and others with similar habits to yourself bought more GOG games then GOG would have more capital and theoretically could afford to purchase more game licenses and thus release more games each week. Food for thought.
GOG doesn't "purchase game licenses". They sell things for the publishers on a consignment type system. Though having more capital would allow them more developers to test software and remove DRM, so it could result in more releases from that perspective.
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Community
General discussion (archive)Release: Spacechem(93 posts)(93 posts)
(93 posts)