It's a neat concept with very unambitious execution; the idea of having a series of interconnected nodes where the codes can either run code or be something else entirely like forms of storage and processing is interesting, but we only get the stack node. The manual even teases the RAM node and the mysterious T20, but those don't end up appearing in the game, and even with the stack nodes, your freedom is so limited; sure, you can place them anywhere in the puzzle editor, but in the sandboxes which have the keypads, they're in set locations in the Stack Memory Sandbox, and they're just not there at all in the Image Console Sandbox, so if you hoped to use Stack Memory nodes to make cool games or interactive functions in there, no.

The developers didn't really consider if people wanted to mess around with the language to make stuff; instead, they focused on providing a straightforward gameplay experience, with some leaderboards to chase. But as far as puzzle games go, it's very mediocre in that context; a small number of puzzles means the difficulty ramps up quickly, and there's oversights in several puzzles that lead to dumb cheese that isn't really about making an efficient algorithm, like the fact that every sequence in Sequence Indexer is ten items long so the fact that it's zero terminated doesn't matter because you can just hardcode the length value. A lot of levels have a minimum node count of four because often the output is four nodes away from the input so the node count part of the leaderboard is kind of moot. And the game has a light story communicated through a couple of logs that is interesting but doesn't go anywhere in the initial campaign because the game just ends on a random still image and a virtual reboot.

So, it's not a great puzzle game, it doesn't push it's concept, and it actively doesn't want you to mess around and experiment with the language. I don't know if it would have been able to accomplish the first thing, but I wish it at least had the courage to do the last two. Except someone else solved that. It's the TIS-3D mod for Minecraft, and it addresses those last two problems perfectly and absolutely. Too bad nobody ever puts it in their modpacks so you'll never get to play with it.

inteligence rasizm

After having a blast with other Zachtronics games (especially Exapunks!) I thought I will like this one. I finished the main campaign, but I never got into it - it was more tedious than fun.

The main problem is the extremely restricted programming model; you can only fit 15 instructions in each "node", and frequently need multiple of them to do basic operations like comparing two numbers. Thus, you never get to solve any interesting, thematic challenges (like those in Exapunks), usually, the main difficulty lies in cramming your program in the space limit while doing trivial tasks like finding a maximum element in the sequence. Hard pass.

accessibility clearly wasn't a priority here. No keyboard navigation, no matter how nonsensical that decision is given the game's UI. The default font is tiny, with no size options. The user manual is a puzzle in itself, but I think that's supposed to be a feature?

with a magnifying glass in hand & your favourite mouse emulation software... it's a neat challenge, until you reach the point that you don't understand how to find the solution. I know that the challenge of figuring it out on your own is fun, but when you are hopelessly lost to the point of googling it or giving up, a hint or a simple english manual is actually a good thing, and it makes games more fun. If the game were accessible I would review it as "if you're into unforgiving stuff like this, you'll probably like it" and move on, and just accept it's not a game for me. But combined with how blatantly inaccessible it is, I'm bitter.

what

I've enjoyed the games by this developer so far, but this one was dull. Don't really recommend it. Play the other ones.

boring, confusing, not fun

I don't mind sadistically hard games at all, but the lack of a proper Tutorial absolutely ruined the experience for me. Consider that if you had a few small levels to introduce the different commands, this game would be six times easier and more addictive. Therefore, having the difficulty artificially increased made me think "Why am I wasting so much time when I could be playing another challenging game that properly includes a natural difficulty curve?"

A big disappointment, really. Also, the fonts are so small that you'll need to strain your eyes to read everything.

First of all: This may be a good game for a lot of people and I would almost recommend it, but there are so many little things that add up over time, which make me give a thumbs down for this one. It just wasn't for me
I've played a few Zachtronics games so far and had a lot of fun with them. TIS-100 included. But (to me) this game feels unneccesaryly limited. When I started the game, the first thing I thought was "I don't like how it looks". I'm used to the GUI by now, but the "style" Zachtronics went with here, still isn't my cup of tea. But what about the gameplay itself?
You have up to 12 so called "Nodes" in which you can write your code with which the inputs are processed to outputs. So far so good. But most of the time I find myself limited by the size of the Nodes. There is space for at most 15 lines of code with at most 18 characters per line in each Node. And there are 2 places per Node where a number can be stored.
You also have the abillity to use "labels" to jump to specific parts of the code and use "#" to write down comments.
But this means on one side, most of the time labels and comments are limited to 4 or less characters, when put in a line of code which makes the code confusing and documentation very hard. When you come back to a programm after a few days you don't know what does what and why any more. On the other side you can't use a new line for labels or comments, because space is so heavily limited. When you want to access your second saved number one time (for example to add 1, using it as a counter) you have to swap the two slots, add and swap back. So 3 of your 15 possible lines are taken by this one action.
Solving the first puzzles felt great. I was learning the syntax, how to use and abuse what was given and often found lines of code I could delete or rearrange to make the programm faster or use less Nodes. But after some time, with later levels, the game was all about even getting the programm to run at all. I had to use all Nodes, all methods to save space, optimize and rewrite everything over and over until finally everything worked. Some levels took hours and I didn't had the erge to optimze my programm or to find a better solution. I was happy to have it done and to never do it again.
I had a lot of fun challenging myself throughout the game, but I reached the point, where I was happier to close the game, than to open it. And I think, that's is a good place to stop.