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SpaceChem, Game of the Year 2010

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
Surprised this hasn't been mentioned here already. It was released on Jan 1, 2011 but I'm giving it my game of the year for 2010.

http://www.spacechemthegame.com/

This is an indie puzzle game with great production values that has you taking on the role of a chemist in space. (Convert Methane into Hydrogen and Ethane!) Here's a screenshot:

ss4.png


The game has a terrific demo that should last you 2-3 hours and gives an excellent idea of what the game is all about. The actual gameplay is a like building a factory with a conveyor
belt to do a complex task out of a set of simple components. It hits the "build" and "puzzle" fun archetypes very well.

Reasons I like the game:
-Interesting concept. I've not played any other games as a chemist.
-Challenging puzzles that do not rely on trial and error.
-Partial failure. There is a sense of satisfaction as you get each part of a solution working. You can watch where things go wrong and then tweak them without feeling like you are in a save and reload situation.
-Good controls. The author clearly understood people wouldn't want to be dragging and dropping forever in a game like this.
-Decent music.

Total list of everything wrong with the game:
-Not available for purchase on Steam. ($20 for digital download from independent website) I emailed the creator and told him I'd buy it as soon as it was available on Steam.

ss3.png



ss1.png
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
Oh, and I forgot to mention something. When you complete a puzzle it shows a graph of how you did in comparison to all other players so you can see how you rank on the bell curve for time, efficiency, etc.

Really drives home that there is more than one solution to each puzzle. It also provides re-playability in the form of an incentive to go back and improve on your (saved) solutions.

http://img836.imageshack.us/i/spacechem ... screen.jpg
spacechemrankingscreen.jpg
 

Reject_666_6

Arcane
Joined
Oct 30, 2008
Messages
2,465
Location
Transylvania
It's a pretty fun demo and the game's easier to learn that you would think. I do recommend it.

The thing with SpaceChem is that the build and puzzle aspects become incredibly easy when you focus on each step at a time and then work out any eventual kinks. This means that actually reaching a solution is guaranteed.

The real challenge and fun is for optimisation-fags because you can think up some super fast, or super efficient solutions. You can even try going for both. Plus, I read that the full game has some achievements to work towards too.
 

asper

Arcane
Joined
Nov 14, 2007
Messages
2,207
Project: Eternity
Looks cool and has a linux version. Thanks for the heads up. Downloading demo.
 

Destroid

Arcane
Joined
May 9, 2007
Messages
16,628
Location
Australia
I can vouch that it is genuinely difficult and the demo is very generous. I've been playing for maybe 60-90 minutes and I am up to the 2nd puzzle of the 3rd planet, and I'm stumped right now. I'll post again when I work it out.
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,503
Already deleted it. I don't recommend it to anyone who would like to learn multithreded programming. It would teach you extremely bad type of programming. Majority of high end multithreaded programming happens without any synchronization whatever. This game completely requires using sync command.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
Raghar said:
Already deleted it. I don't recommend it to anyone who would like to learn multithreded programming. It would teach you extremely bad type of programming. Majority of high end multithreaded programming happens without any synchronization whatever. This game completely requires using sync command.
It's a game, not a university course. Is Uplink terrible because it doesn't teach you how to actually hack computers? lol
 

Gragt

Arcane
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Nov 1, 2007
Messages
1,864,860
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Dans Ton Cul
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin
Just a small update: the game is now available on Steam for all you fags who require and request to have the game on that platform. That said you can still buy directly from the developper and register your key on Steam — it also has the advantage that you are certain to pay 15$ and not 15€ or some similar nonsense. And if you previously bought Spacechem, you can still register your key with Steam.

Also it seems that the price went down to 15$ instead of 20$. Do not hesitate, it is a superb game.
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

Kamelåså!
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Joined
Jun 18, 2010
Messages
20,317
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DiNMRK
Well, I tore through the demo. It's quite fun.

You can work around using sync commands, and often shave off a decent amount of cycles in doing so, but it requires a fair amount of additional symbols.

[edit]

Got the full game now. It's not too difficult yet (up to the last mission on the 4th planet). The operations have gotten a great deal more complex on planet #4 however. Sync commands are beginning to become a necessity, as you suddenly have to detect which of several random molecules you happen to be operating on at the moment, with branching operating paths.
 
Joined
Nov 12, 2009
Messages
191
J1M said:
Total list of everything wrong with the game:
-Not available for purchase on Steam. ($20 for digital download from independent website) I emailed the creator and told him I'd buy it as soon as it was available on Steam.

You like the game, you want to buy it, you can buy it direct from the developer, hell no must give money to steam. You're a faggot.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
Buying a game that isn't on Steam is like throwing your money away. It's not for realsies unless you have it on Steam.
 

7hm

Scholar
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Messages
644
Its a good puzzle game. Highly recommended and well worth 15$.

Very polished for an indie.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
space odyssey said:
J1M said:
Total list of everything wrong with the game:
-Not available for purchase on Steam. ($20 for digital download from independent website) I emailed the creator and told him I'd buy it as soon as it was available on Steam.

You like the game, you want to buy it, you can buy it direct from the developer, hell no must give money to steam. You're a faggot.
Actually, I bought it directly from the dev and activated it on steam. Withholding my monies until this option existed resulted in me getting exactly what I wanted.

Think about this the next time you are about to pay for female interaction. :smug:
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
Multi-headed Cow said:
Buying a game that isn't on Steam is like throwing your money away. It's not for realsies unless you have it on Steam.
So this is on Steam now and it's really good you guys. I recommend everyone buy it immediately.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
I will post an update.

The last two missions were difficult enough that I lost patience with them and looked up a solution. It was nice to know that a puzzle game had pushed me to the limit of its parameters. I don't remember the last time that happened. Nor do I feel shame in admitting it, when you see the puzzles you'll know why.
 

Multi-headed Cow

Guest
I'm starting to get bogged down managing more than one reactor at a time. DAMN TUBES MESSING WITH MY TIMING.
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

Kamelåså!
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Joined
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Messages
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DiNMRK
So... Spacechem. I dug this out recently and had moar fun with it. I used to compete with some of my uni engineer buddies on who could complete the various levels with the fewest symbols/cycles/etc and that got me thinking. Would the codex be interested in a Spacechem contest?

What I'm thinking is I'd fire up the spacechem editor and make a handful of levels. Then post a couple of them to the playground every week. People can then try to solve them as optimally as possible and PM me their solutions. At the end of the week, I'll rate them to some predefined criteria (cycles, symbols, maybe a few other things), give points to the best solutions and do a small writeup. Once all challenges are done, we can have a small single-elimination tournament for the top 2, 4 or 8 (depending on # of people who decide to compete) and I'll toss in a small prize. Say, a game on steam (within limits. No Railworks +all DLC bundle) or a donation in the winners name for a year of KKKodex patron status.


Spacechem is currently available on steams or DRM-free from the devs for 3 jewgoldz.
 

Turisas

Arch Devil
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Joined
May 25, 2009
Messages
9,926
Guess I'll be finally buying it, I remember being interested when it first came out but kinda forgot all about it. Contest sounds cool too, even if I wouldn't have an entry myself (unless you want hilariously inept solutions just for the lulz :lol:).
 
Self-Ejected

Ulminati

Kamelåså!
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Joined
Jun 18, 2010
Messages
20,317
Location
DiNMRK
I was thinking of 2-3 puzzles/week for 4-10 weeks (depending on # of interested people). Puzzles would be posted sunday, deadline for submission the following saturday and people could solve as many of them as they felt like. I could start out with some easy ones, then gradually bump up the difficulty. Or I could make a mix of easy and difficult ones so there'd be something for newbies to do even if they join halfway through.

[edit]

Scoring could be along the lines of: 3pts for completing a puzzle +2 points of some specific restriction such as "no rotate symbols" is met + 5/4/3 points for 1st/2nd/3rd place ordered by whatever criteria is the judging criteria for the puzzle.

With two puzzles per week, that's 10 points minimum you're guaranteed, up to a possible 20 if you optimize better than fellow codexians.
 

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