EXAPUNKS

Exapunks proposes a syntactically assembly-like language, whose instructions, however, are commands that manipulate the behavior of robots/viruses. You can use an arbitrary number of robots (although unfortunately most levels can be solved with one, or at most two) and furthermore, each robot is able, through an appropriate command, to create copies of itself that execute the same code. The linguistic paradigm is therefore heavily centered on parallelization and recursion, and this is an extremely fascinating premise. My problem with the game is tied to the fact that most of the levels are gimmicks: in every level a new hardware peripheral, a register, or anyway some specific interaction exclusive to that level is introduced (if you've played SHENZEN I/O I think you understand what I mean; it's very similar and it's the same reason why I dropped that one too), and furthermore, the explanation of said gimmick is missing from the level description, but rather found in the PDFs/external documentation. Therefore, rather than focusing vertically on trying to translate the problem into the game's language, a large part of the resolution lies first in interpreting the prompt (which will …

Every level felt fair except for the second to last one; the rest of the levels felt as though if you thought for long enough you'd always find the solution. Watching your code work for the first time is surprising and rewarding. The programming language is simple enough that you spend all your time focusing on the puzzles and not the language. Having programming experience is not necessary to play this game. This game works very well on linux.

Zachtronics makes very good puzzle games for freaks and I like them for it.

ima hackerman

Love this game even though I'm not nearly as good at programming as some of the other folks in the reviews. It just makes you feel like a gritty hacker in a dystopian cyberpunk world. And the soundtrack is great.

this is what being high at 2am feels like when you are unemployed