Programming Games I've Played
Programming games are categorized by a primary gameplay loop of puzzles, but with a focus on algorithms or actual code. I've played 13 games in this genre so far.
You can also go back to all genres.
Last Call BBS
Superb collection of puzzles. Feels more like a NYT Puzzle Section than a single puzzle game, which is great. It sort of follows Elden Ring in that if you get stuck you can go try something else. I loved the little stories about game development and the varied themes of each game. What a swan song.
EXAPUNKS
Honestly one of their bests. Coding puzzles are hard, but large resource limits (and no line restrictoions) help a lot to make it accessible. It also has the best atmosphere/story of any of their games yet! Highely enjoyed.
Opus Magnum
Definitely has the easiest campaign of a Zachtronics game that I've played. I really liked not being limited by space and having flexible inputs and outputs. This is really the evolution of the Spacechem formula and I thoroughly enjoyed it. There's a couple of mechanics that feel a little tacked on in the main campaign (one specifically jumps to mind) but it's not that distracting and the game itself is a triumph.
Rogue Bit
Definitely a clever design. I didn't love most of the puzzles- felt like too much trial an error and not enough actual solving. But, it's certainly and interesting one!
Hacknet
Beat the main campaign in just under 6 hours, though that's inflated. Great writing and story. Biggest complaint is that the actual hacking part is repetitive- there's not a lot of choice, you just run the programs on the same ports all the time. Real fun to play nonetheless. Expansion did a good job expanding on the initial gameplay of the first part. Same good story. Overall repetitive, but driving and enjoyable.
Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age
Definitely an interesting game. At some level, it's weird to program out all the gameplay. For a good percentage of the game, it was just running at 4x speed (a feature I didn't think I'd use, but I really did). That feels weird, but it would also feel very slow to play a game where you do identical battles over and over where you just attack. So, that kept the game moving. The story was pretty good. Felt almost Shakespearean in parts (convoluted, but enjoyable). The liscense boards were fine, but jobs were a good improvement. Hunts were fun and the world building was great! The cutscenes didn't look that good, which was weird.
SHENZHEN I/O
Pretty cool. A more polished version of TIS-100. I liked the UI a lot. I thought the puzzles were well done, but definitely too rich for my blood towards the end. There's a lot of potential there, but I feel like I never used a lot of other pieces besides the code modules, which is too bad. Doing more logic stuff (XOR, AND, etc) would have been neat. Either way, very cool. If you took cs and enjoyed doing really hacky c++ stuff to really optimize your solutions, this is for you.
Human Resource Machine
Great for getting non-programmers into programming, or if you're already someone who enjoys it. Great art/style. My big gripe is that once you're programming with it, it's a pain to be dragging stuff instead of copy/paste
MOLEK-SYNTEZ
Interesting background story, but I didn't find solving the puzzles as satisfying. Because of the internal bond logic, it makes it a little less straightforward to improve solutions- swapping steps doesn't always result in the same output. I also didn't love the way rotation and spawning worked in combination with line of sight manipulation. I can see myself coming back to it if I really wanted to sink some time into it little optimizations, but it was a bit of miss for me compared to Opus Magnum.