Questions about Exapunks, Shenzhen and Opus Magnum

[Kriemfield]

Hello there,
I have a few questions for those of you who own Shenzhen, Exapunks and Opus Magnum.

1. Between Shenzhen and Exapunks which one is the more enjoyable ?

2. I have enjoyed Opus Magnum but I have not managed to finish it yet, is Exapunks more difficult ?

3. What are the mini games included in Exapunks ? (I find the one in Opus Magnum enjoyable) Are they good ?

Have a nice day,
Kriemfield

[Zednaught]

In answer to your question:

Shenzhen and Exapunks are both coding games. between them, Exapunks is far more approachable. I had no experience as a coder before I played, so you don't need any outside knowledge.

1. Exapunks is probably a better place for a beginner. Shenzhen is great, too, but it has a steep learning curve.

2. Definitely, yes. A lot of the difficulty is just having to learn how coding works, in general. That said, the constraints on you are all pretty mild.

3. Yep, several infact. Plus, you have the opportunity to build your own games and play others' creations. You'll likely need to do a little outside reading to get started making your own games, but soon you'll find it's pretty straightforward.

[Escaloupe]

Exapunks feels harder to learn than shenzhen, since latter has emails with some hints if a solution requires new commands. Here you have to rely exclusively on yourself and manual. No hints at all

[[YAK]Kingpun]

Originally posted by Escaloupe:

Exapunks feels harder to learn than shenzhen, since latter has emails with some hints if a solution requires new commands. Here you have to rely exclusively on yourself and manual. No hints at all

what? every level type in the main campaign has a zine article which explains how it works. no hints at all, except the hint book/tutorial organised explicitly according to the level!

[Phobian]

Yeah Shenzhen is definitely the more complex game, though the story in Exapunks is a bit more engaging (Shenzhen's needing to be pretty mundane)

[Andraax]

I find all enjoyable. It is not trivial for me to say which one is easier. Both have a considerable learning curve, as I would say the challenges increase in difficulty quite a bit along the way.

1. Shenzhen includes spacial constraints, because the placement and connection of components play a role on top of the programming. In Exapunks the programmed "Exa-Virus" also needs to move in an environment, which leads to other kind of challenges, such as communication between multiple instances of the same or different Exas. I play both as I enjoy the differences in challenges. Maybe the first 10 tasks of both games are relatively easy. I managed the first 9 tasks in Exapunks in 3 hours for example. At least in Shenzhen at task 11+ I found myself starting to think a lot harder and taking increasingly more time to solve. (My time there can't compare to Exapunks due to hours of Solitaire. :)

For now I tend to believe, that Exapunks may be a bit easier to begin. TIS-100 is also great for programming, but more hardcore with less eyecandy.

2. Hard to say if Exapunks is easier than Opus Magnum. Probably not, although I am not as deep in Opus Magnum yet. Still, I would say OM is maybe the most approachable game made by Zachtronics, as it is less "computer scientific" type without writing programming code.
In fact OM compares more to Spacechem, as it has no coding using numerical operations like Exapunks, but spacial constraints, coordination challenges, etc.

3. Dunno about minigames in OM and EP yet. I do like the SIO solitaire though.

All in all, I think Shenzhen I/O strikes me as the maybe most challenging one in the end, as you need to combine components with programming.

Considering Zachtronics games are all of excellent quality (also the older ones), and offered at a great price range, when thinking some AAA titles cost 50-60 bucks, it doesn't hurt to pick up all of them eventually. :)

[Kriemfield]

Thanks a lot for all the feedbacks ! I have bought Exapunks and I find the beginning a little bit difficult as I have to get used to the coding, but I like it (Shenzhen looks good too because of the solitaire haha, maybe I will get it later). In my opinion, Opus Magnum is easier.

[davidalangay]

My own opinion, neither truth nor fact, is Opus Magnum is the best. In OM, there is no size limitation to your solution, which makes sense. It shouldn't matter how big or small is your solution...if you can get 2 plus 2 to add up to 4, that's all that matters. This limitation in the other games like Shenzhen I/O or TIS-100 is why I never finished them, though I did enjoy playing them and fool around with the sandbox mode from time to time.

[Andraax]

Exapunks also has no limit to the lines of code, but I found you can't write endless data into a "file", which appears a bit counterintuitive. Still great, and although it has challenges on its own, I find it easier to solve than Shenzhen IO. I wonder if I can solve TIS-100 and Shenzhen IO without checking online for tipps and solutions.
With Exapunkts and Opus Magnum I am quite confident. I managed to reach Chapter 4 in OM and also finished the digital library project in Exapunks.

[Cheezeman]

Originally posted by Andraax:

Exapunks also has no limit to the lines of code....

Eh? There most certainly is a limit to the lines of code allowed on any particular level, although it is generally large enough that I haven't had any issues with it yet.

[Zednaught]

Originally posted by Cheezeman:

Originally posted by Andraax:

Exapunks also has no limit to the lines of code....

Eh? There most certainly is a limit to the lines of code allowed on any particular level, although it is generally large enough that I haven't had any issues with it yet.

It's changed since Early Access, if you weren't aware. You can exceed the limit now and still progress through the game. Only, your solution won't be counted as part of the metrics at the end.

[Cheezeman]

Ah yes that's right, it does let you still complete the level even if you exceed the limit. Cheers.

[Andraax]

Originally posted by Cheezeman:

Ah yes that's right, it does let you still complete the level even if you exceed the limit. Cheers.

That's what I meant. You drop out of the statistics, but you can complete the task. Part of the game is optimization, so you can always go back and improve your solution or create a bettre one. Also you may have more lines, but maybe faster...

[la_nague]

i find optimizing opus magnum really hard because its about geometry and stuff, i find the other games much easier to deal with in my head.

[TheWhiteFlame]

actually i find OM pretty boring and stopped halfay through campaign. the only "interesting" part in OP is optimizing to min cycles, but even that follows the same exact rules everytime.
spacechem is a bit older, but still fun, but probably also the most "unfriendly" in terms of input yet maybe easier to read than tis-100.
-OM i would recommend rather for very casual play, the 4 others i can reecommend for everybody who likes problem solving.
tho i probably like the coding games the best.
-of those tis-100 is probably the most "raw". reading code is kinda difficult and higher levels are a challange just to solve, even without optimizing. optimizing is really hard. so its a good challenge and i also like the story parts, can reccomend. (and its probably kinda cheap to buy)
-shenzhen io has a bit more "advanced" coding compared to tis-100. however how the ingame cycle system works is a bit different. it's abit more accessable i would say and "only" solving is a bit easier, yet optimizing proves a serious challenge still. (attention: be sure to learn ALL commands, otherwise you might face a wall).
-i was very happy about exapunks, since its yet another goodie from zach.
i think the coding is improved in terms that some of the tedious parts of tis-100 can be written in more advanced code and also the timing problem from shenzhen is circumvented. the coding limit is also "more flexible". overall the fact that you can dynamically controll the number of exas (which replace the individual computation cells from the other games), i feel that the programming language/potential in exapunks is the greatest and there is "more" room for creating awesomeness and really smart things (tho some incredible things have been achieved in shenzhen aswell, search youtube).

if you have watched his google talk, he mentions coding-war games. this is the biggest addition over the other 2 games, you can havey our exas battle against your friends. this multiplayer feature makes this game the beest pick imho.

so in the end i would recommend the coding games over the others, if you are into that.

spacechem over OM if you want more of a challenge.

exapunks over shennzhen and tis-100 for the "battle" part, variety, graphics, accessabilty and sandbox programming power.

tis-100 i would reccommend if you want to have a taste of (pseudo) assemlber and just for the awesome rawness, its really pretty cool. the story is also nice there are some suprises in there aswell which i dont wanna spoil, i enjoyed it a lot, but most of the joy is really THINKING about the solution (so you really can play the game in your head while under the shower or where ever).

shenzhen i would recommend of you want even more coding challenges after tis-100 and exapunks or if this style just totaly floats your boat. the mini-cardgame is also really addicing in there (exa has that too).

OM i would recommend if you dont want to really code that much and prefer solving puzzles VISUALLY / GEOMETRICALLY. although the downside is, that the "language" is the "weakest" of all those games.

infinifactory is also great and fits more in the GEOMETRICAL puzzle-sytle aswell. imho in there you have more potntial than in OM, also it's 3D stuff.

i own all of them and i enjoy all of them.

[TheWhiteFlame]

Originally posted by la_nague:

i find optimizing opus magnum really hard because its about geometry and stuff, i find the other games much easier to deal with in my head.

if you watch a few vid about it, then you will see that you have to optimize almost always in the same way. if think that makes is more or less straitforward (compared to other games).
but i can become tiresome for BIG solutions. that was my feeling at least.