New to Zachtronics

[Blue_Skies]

So I've never played a Zachtronics puzzle game but looking for something to exercise my brain.

I'm looking at the bundle and wondering which one has randomly generated puzzles/levels or do they all follow a progression/story until you beat the last level?

And then the replaybility is making your solutions more efficient?

Also which would you recommend for a beginner, I don't have any experience in programming.

Thx.

[Telemak]

Alloha

Zachtronics are all progression based games, when you finish a level, 3 score histograms show you the best of each player's solutions in term of efficiency. The first one is about 'cost' (number and complexity of components) for which the higher cost is deplorable, the second one is about the time your system takes to fullfill the output, and the third one is game dependant (space used, ...).

At first, you'll be glad to reach the top of the gaussian histogram (congrats, you're normal boy. When you know normal means the square root of variance)

Progression curve is higher with spacechem, you may be discouraged pretty soon.

Basically the challenge is to select one of the criterions to make a score equivalent to the best score, or to improve yourself depending on your own mindset.

Pure programming games don't let you so much freedom, I think Shenzen I/O is the worst because of higher constraints.

For a beginner, huh, ExaPunks maybe ?

Good luck have fun !

[Blue_Skies]

Thx for the breakdown John.

Yeah I was looking at Spacechem it's quite cheap on sale but also looks quite daunting.

Infinifactory looks more approachable, initially anyway.

Didn't realize ExaPunks was out as it's not in the bundle. Downloading the Red Shift player try get a feel of the game.

[kyojin_desu]

Opus Magnum is not a programming game and is definitely the easiest Zachtronics's game, so I'd recommend starting with this one.
If you want a programming game though, then as John said.

[Alcator]

Also, there are thousands of additional challenges produced by the community. They do tend to be slightly towards the "Hard" difficulty (especially the most popular ones), so be sure to go through the entire official campaign before trying your teeth on the community products.