TIS-100

Where some games imagine entirely fictional worlds and characters TIS 100 imagines a fictional CPU where you write a stripped down assembly language to solve puzzles. It is brilliant to play and unfortunately the most fun I've had programming this year. I code professionally and like many others have had huge portion of my workflow replaced with agentic AI. Every language feels the same now. Every code review feels so bloated. And we lost something. TIS 100 is a game where you get to enjoy the process. It's a slow burn meant to be played over a long period of time. I remember I like coding. I like thinking about CPU registers and writing tough logic. I like getting my code to run just that much faster. I miss the flow states you could get in while coding or doing long debugging sessions with coworkers. Anyway, I recommend the game. I played the first few levels with my dad, and now we compete on some later ones.

MOV UP, LIBRARY MOV TIS, FAVS ADD AMAZING GAME, WOULD RECOMEND MOV TIS, DOWN

I work in compilers. We made compilers specifically to stop having to write assembly by hand. This hurts my brain. Why have you done this to us, Zach, WHY?! 10/10 would suffer again.

I wish we had more games like this one

This game helped me realize I was never suited to be a programmer.

Fun puzzle game for the price advertised. I work on software many levels higher in abstraction to what this game simulates so I can't comment on how accurate it is. The closest thing to my line of work are synchronous/blocking communication systems. I haven't finished the game yet but I'm instinctively reaching for non-blocking or event driven patterns that don't work here. If you want to learn programming there are better resources and you'll likely be dealing with concepts higher than assembly instructions.