Human Resource Machine

I just finished all the levels in *Human Resource Machine*. I definitely recommend this game, but with one important disclaimer: it probably isn't for everyone. If you enjoy mathematics, programming, or automation, you'll likely have a great time with it. If not, it might end up being more frustrating than fun. What I found especially interesting and exciting about the game is that it doesn't just cover basic concepts like `if-else` statements and loops. It also introduces lower-level programming concepts such as pointers and linked lists in a surprisingly accessible way. The UI is excellent, and some of the puzzles are genuinely challenging. For me, the hardest level was **Prime Factor**. It took me more than two hours to finally beat it, but the sense of achievement afterwards was incredible. My biggest complaint, however, is the execution speed. Even when running at full speed, programs with a large number of steps can still take a long time to finish. There were many situations where I already knew the earlier part of my solution was correct and only needed to debug the later sections, but every time I had to sit through the entire program slowly executing the previous step…

This is quite literally a Sokoban game, and certain psychological traps operate on that exact same wavelength. --- I put 166 total hours into this ♥♥♥♥ and managed to hit both optimization goals with a single program on every level where it was possible. On Level 41, the insertion sort I wrote cleared both challenges instantly, though looking back at the data, the maximum sample size is only 24, so a simple in-place selection sort would have done the trick. It is a perfect reminder of Donald Knuth's advice that you cannot judge an algorithm purely by its asymptotic complexity; you have to look at the actual constraints of the problem. For me, the absolute cursed levels were Level 35 (Duplicate Removal) and Level 40 (Prime Factory). The optimization trick for Level 35 is incredibly non-intuitive, and the benchmark is brutal. With Level 40, seeing prime numbers made my brain short-circuit for a second, and I honestly wondered if it was even doable in a crippled assembly. The limits ended up being pretty forgiving, though. I managed to get it down to 28 instructions and 271 cycles, but there is definitely a better balanced solution out there.

Good Game

I love this game, the puzzles are so simple but so difficult at the same time. Definitely only buy it if you enjoy extremely difficult puzzle games, that make you spend hours on a single level. I mean, you can probably beat most of the levels pretty quickly, especially if you already know some programming (although the later ones are difficult in themselves), but the real challenge is optimizing your "code" and getting all the achievements.

Cute programming puzzle game

For assembly professionals.