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Related: http://store.steampowered.com/app/370360/TIS100/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/370360/TIS100/

peterlk 9y ago
After some hesitation about buying this game, I'm super glad that I did. The puzzles are well balanced with increasing difficulty, and I find them relaxing and fun
- MBCook 9y ago
  Like all Zachtronics games it a lot of fun, but near the end it gets HARD. If you like that you might try Shenzhen I/O next. You do a little assembly programming but you also make electric circuits using pre-to find parts to make things that customers request.
server_bot 9y ago
Agree on the TIS-100 recommendation. What surprised me most was just how open-ended the puzzles are, especially given the limited instruction set. There's a great deal of replay value just in iterating your own solutions to improve performance (i.e. reduce cycle count). Will have to give the game posted on this thread a try as well!
- Snowe 9y ago
  Indeed. It brings space v time to the fore as you're "ricering" your solutions, and elegance v maximised kludge.
justinhj 9y ago
Also Chenzhen IO is wonderful
- cosarara97 9y ago
  SHENZHEN I/O is the actual name: http://store.steampowered.com/app/504210/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/504210/
jasonkostempski 9y ago
Also available on GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/tis100 https://www.gog.com/game/tis100 if you don't like adding DRM to a DRM-free game by purchasing through Steam. I bought TIS-100 through Steam years ago, only had it a few days before they decided to suspend my account for 2 weeks and take away all the games I purchased. They we're all on sale when I bought them originally but the sales were over by the time I got my account back. I finally got TIS-100 back last week through GOG because I happened to see it and it was half-off (would have bought it anyway). Can't wait to finish it.
- kungtotte 9y ago
  So why did you get suspended and had your games taken away? Did it happen randomly?
  - jasonkostempski 9y ago
    They never told me exactly. My guess was that I happened to use 3 different CCs, all in my name, to buy the 3 or 4 games I bought over my first few days having the account. I meant to say in my original comment that they did refund everything, so it wasn't as horrible as it could have been but I did miss out on the sale prices, a few weeks of not being able to play a game with my friends, and it left me with an ever-lasting bad taste for Steam and DRM in any form (which is good in the long run I suppose).
    - Moru 9y ago
      We have bought every game with a different e-card an no problems so far. This means at least 500 different cards. E-cards was a service where you could create a credit card with a fixed amount of money on for each buy, limiting the risk involved in giving out your card details on the net. Sadly they shut it down recently.
- voltagex_ 9y ago
  Do you have a small claims court where you are? Might be worth going through that - depending on how much the account is worth.
craftyguy 9y ago
Ohh, I really like this game! Another good one, in which you design ever more complex logic (ending with a CPU) is MHRD: http://store.steampowered.com/app/576030/MHRD http://store.steampowered.com/app/576030/MHRD
FRex 9y ago
There is also Colobot (and Ceebot but it's more constrained IMO and it's not free), it's very fun (and not just programming but also some other stuff) even though the graphics look like PS2 and in theory you can finish the game with 0 programming. I had it in Polish long before it was open sourced. https://colobot.info/ https://colobot.info/
JoeDaDude 9y ago
Also related. You'd never guess it from the name but Human Resource Machine [1] is also a low level programming game. [1] https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine

After some hesitation about buying this game, I'm super glad that I did. The puzzles are well balanced with increasing difficulty, and I find them relaxing and fun

MBCook 9y ago
Like all Zachtronics games it a lot of fun, but near the end it gets HARD. If you like that you might try Shenzhen I/O next. You do a little assembly programming but you also make electric circuits using pre-to find parts to make things that customers request.

server_bot 9y ago

Agree on the TIS-100 recommendation. What surprised me most was just how open-ended the puzzles are, especially given the limited instruction set. There's a great deal of replay value just in iterating your own solutions to improve performance (i.e. reduce cycle count). Will have to give the game posted on this thread a try as well!

Snowe 9y ago
Indeed. It brings space v time to the fore as you're "ricering" your solutions, and elegance v maximised kludge.

justinhj 9y ago

Also Chenzhen IO is wonderful

cosarara97 9y ago
SHENZHEN I/O is the actual name: http://store.steampowered.com/app/504210/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/504210/

jasonkostempski 9y ago

Also available on GOG: https://www.gog.com/game/tis100 https://www.gog.com/game/tis100 if you don't like adding DRM to a DRM-free game by purchasing through Steam. I bought TIS-100 through Steam years ago, only had it a few days before they decided to suspend my account for 2 weeks and take away all the games I purchased. They we're all on sale when I bought them originally but the sales were over by the time I got my account back. I finally got TIS-100 back last week through GOG because I happened to see it and it was half-off (would have bought it anyway). Can't wait to finish it.

kungtotte 9y ago
So why did you get suspended and had your games taken away? Did it happen randomly?
- jasonkostempski 9y ago
  They never told me exactly. My guess was that I happened to use 3 different CCs, all in my name, to buy the 3 or 4 games I bought over my first few days having the account. I meant to say in my original comment that they did refund everything, so it wasn't as horrible as it could have been but I did miss out on the sale prices, a few weeks of not being able to play a game with my friends, and it left me with an ever-lasting bad taste for Steam and DRM in any form (which is good in the long run I suppose).
  - Moru 9y ago
    We have bought every game with a different e-card an no problems so far. This means at least 500 different cards. E-cards was a service where you could create a credit card with a fixed amount of money on for each buy, limiting the risk involved in giving out your card details on the net. Sadly they shut it down recently.
voltagex_ 9y ago
Do you have a small claims court where you are? Might be worth going through that - depending on how much the account is worth.

craftyguy 9y ago

Ohh, I really like this game! Another good one, in which you design ever more complex logic (ending with a CPU) is MHRD: http://store.steampowered.com/app/576030/MHRD http://store.steampowered.com/app/576030/MHRD

FRex 9y ago

There is also Colobot (and Ceebot but it's more constrained IMO and it's not free), it's very fun (and not just programming but also some other stuff) even though the graphics look like PS2 and in theory you can finish the game with 0 programming. I had it in Polish long before it was open sourced. https://colobot.info/ https://colobot.info/

JoeDaDude 9y ago

Also related. You'd never guess it from the name but Human Resource Machine [1] is also a low level programming game. [1] https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine https://tomorrowcorporation.com/humanresourcemachine