6 ms·

This is based on the game, Opus Magnum [1], where you basically program arms to move and combine units to generate the expected units. You’re graded on a few t

This is based on the game, Opus Magnum [1], where you basically program arms to move and combine units to generate the expected units. You’re graded on a few thing: efficiency in number of movements, efficiency in number of units, and efficiency in space. Like real programming, you often have to sacrifice one or two to maximize the other. Definitely a game most on HN would enjoy. [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/558990/Opus_Magnum/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/558990/Opus_Magnum/

stavros 2y ago
I was going to say this reminds me of Zachtronics games, but I looked it up and it is one, so no wonder.
gcanyon 2y ago
Am I the only person around who hates Steam? I would happily snap this game up except for the fact that it's on Steam. What benefit do I, as the person playing the game, get from having to run another program just to run the program I really want to run? I made an exception for N++, but even there I play it much less often than I otherwise would because I loathe the fact that I can't just double-click the game itself and go. HA! Here was my experience just now: 1. Open N++ 2. Wait maybe 5 seconds with no visible update 3. Steam opens a very primitive, very non-Mac-like dialog, to inform me it's downloading an update to itself -- 195MB!? 4. Wait for that to finish 5. Another primitive dialog: updating Steam. Not the game -- Steam. 6. Update completes. It's been about a minute? since I tried to run N++ 7. Steam presents a "choose user" dialog. I'm the only user, WTH? 8. I choose myself. Steam asks me to log in. I didn't log out, it's the same computer, why should I have to log in again? 9. Password doesn't auto-suggest. 10. I don't remember my password. 11. I give up and hit cmd-Q 12. Steam doesn't quit 13. Check the menu. Quit is disabled 14. Force-quit Steam Steam, you run other programs. That's all you do. You're bad at your job.
- dgeiser13 2y ago
  Don't buy it on Steam then. It's available on 2 other non-steam outlets, Gog and Itch.io.
  - gcanyon 2y ago
    Thanks! N++ appears to only be available through Steam :-(
- free_bip 2y ago
  This comment is completely off the rails. Your extremely idealistic interpretation of "I should just run the program directly" is preventing you from gaining enjoyment out of literally the most popular gaming program in existence. And it's popular for a reason: It's really damn good at its job. All these extra steps are just a consequence of you extremely rarely opening it - steam is likely giving you the "first start" experience because it's been so long (I say this because nobody else is reporting issues like this online). I've seen it happen after certain major updates too. There's also an element of PEBKAC; password managers are a thing and make logging in take no more than a couple clicks.
  - gcanyon 2y ago
    1. Other apps *ask* if they can update; Steam just does it. 2. Can you justify why Steam should *ever* log me out? 3. re: password managers -- so your answer to my complaint that I have to run/use a second program just to run the one I want... is to install a third app to make the second one less problematic? And: I *have* a password manager: the one built-in to the OS. I have over 100 applications installed; exactly one of them requires another program to gatekeep it. And I understand I'm in the minority here -- I did start with, "Am I the only one..."
    - free_bip 2y ago
      My answer to your complaint of "I don't remember my password" is that you should be using a password manager. If you are using one and forgot it anyway, this is clearly not the fault of steam. The other 2 are easily googleable/chatgptable, so I'll leave that to you.
      - gcanyon 2y ago
        I'm saying that I use the built-in password manager in MacOS. I just checked, and it has the password, but Steam apparently isn't capable of auto-filling. So I looked it up, entered it, and then steam decided that wasn't enough and I had to confirm by email, because new computer. This isn't national security, it's a $20 video game that is twenty years old, that you used to be able to play for free through flash in a web browser. Steam sucks.
- klyrs 2y ago
  I do hate steam! Praise be to gog!
  - gcanyon 2y ago
    There's dozens of us!
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- amitp 2y ago
  I'm happy with Steam on Windows but hate its behavior on Mac. It's slow and keeps stealing focus while starting up. I haven't gotten the "choose user" thing though. Cmd-Q does quit Steam for me.
  - chrisldgk 2y ago
    I agree, the Steam Mac app is a lot worse than it is on Windows or Linux. I would suppose that’s because they’re just running it in some kind of wrapper rather than having any kind of native implementation, that’s just an assumption based on how it feels to use though.
- btdmaster 2y ago
  Assuming N++ does not have any more DRM enabled than Steam imposes on it naturally: 1. Take a look at https://mr_goldberg.gitlab.io/goldberg_emulator/ https://mr_goldberg.gitlab.io/goldberg_emulator/ 2. If you'd like to be able to start the game without Steam using that, go through https://gitlab.com/Mr_Goldberg/goldberg_emulator/-/issues/120 https://gitlab.com/Mr_Goldberg/goldberg_emulator/-/issues/12... which may or may not work. Otherwise, your sentiment is shared, Steam is a horrible Rube Goldberg machine. I've given up on it myself.
  - btdmaster 2y ago
    Also found this fork for MacOS: https://github.com/inflation/goldberg_emulator https://github.com/inflation/goldberg_emulator
- wheybags 2y ago
  The UX of steam is bad for occasional use, but good for regular use. Regular users pay, occasional ones don't. >Steam opens a very primitive, very non-Mac-like dialog Macos is less than 1% of the PC gaming market. The decision to port to macos at all is questionable, spending extra effort to really "feel" like a mac native app would be crazy. Your experience is bad because you are not the target market.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > I would happily snap this game up except for the fact that it's on Steam. Opus Magnum is also available on GOG: https://www.gog.com/de/game/opus_magnum https://www.gog.com/de/game/opus_magnum EDIT: It is additionally available on itch.io: https://zachtronics.itch.io/opus-magnum https://zachtronics.itch.io/opus-magnum
- Ethee 2y ago
  It's comments like these that make me realize we've gone full circle in the convenience life cycle. Pre-steam when you wanted to play your game you would have to download system specific dependencies to ensure your game could run on your specific system. Most of the time these came pre-packaged with the installation files, but rarely you would just have to 'figure it out' when your game crashed upon opening. Time to spend hours trolling some forums to find the answer to the random byte string you were presented. If you are someone who only plays one game, then perfect, once you got that single install figured out you're good to go. Want to play another game? Time to figure it out again. Today you go to steam, click play, and steam just 'figures it out' in the background. Not to mention never having to deal with proper save files again because you swapped systems or the numerous other features that gamers have cried about for years. I'm not saying you should use steam if you hate it as much as you seem to. It's just really ironic to me that if all you're looking for is 'double-click the game and go' you don't want to use Steam. My favorite part of your comment is "Steam, you run other programs. That's all you do. You're bad at your job." because yes, all it does is run other programs, and that's why it's so GOOD at its job. You simply can't or don't want to understand what it's actually doing.
  - gcanyon 2y ago
    oooh, thanks for the context! I've installed and run... maybe 50 games over the past 30-ish years, and every single one has run right out of the box. I'm on a Mac, so maybe that's the difference? So the meta-conversation is: why was (is?) installing and running a game so difficult? Why did game-makers suck at that, creating a billion-dollar opportunity for Steam?
    - Ethee 2y ago
      So unironically the answer to your first question is yes. After reading your other comments in this thread now I completely understand your perspective, and I hate Apple even more for it. Apple literally coddles their users to the point where they have created likely millions of users like yourself. You expect everything to conform to the Apple way, instead of you adapting to the ecosystem you are in. Apple specifically forces developers of their ecosystem to follow specific rules when it comes to installation, UX, dependencies, the whole 9 yards. It's why a lot of game developers simply avoid Mac entirely as a platform. Because it takes a tremendous amount of effort to conform to Apples silly requirements, for less than 1% user base on average (from a game developer perspective entirely). But then you may ask, well if Apple has such a standard for everything, why not everything just conform to that and we make everything easier... It's not that simple see: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ It's not that installing and running a game is 'so difficult' it's that you're expecting it to be as simple as everything else you do in your Apple ecosystem. Because that's how Apple wants it. It's entirely a perspective issue forced upon you by the ecosystem you use. The end result for all this is all the jokes we see about children expecting everything to be touch screen, or having no idea what to do with a controller when they see one. As humans we adapt to our environment, but if we're always forced into the same systems, we start to expect every system to work that way and we stop adapting.
hoseja 2y ago
I really wish there was some sort of "aggregate" score in Opus Magnum. The specialized solutions are typically really ugly and unnatural.
- panic 2y ago
  You may enjoy the “sum” metric obtained by adding the three scores together: https://zlbb.faendir.com/categories/SUM https://zlbb.faendir.com/categories/SUM
  - hoseja 2y ago
    Thank you, that's very nice. I was skeptical a simple sum would work but these solutions indeed look very elegant. Shame this isn't in the base game.
- password54321 2y ago
  You don't play Opus Magnum if you think that's true.
  - hoseja 2y ago
    I admit I struggle to get further into the game when I pick it up from time to time but the ingame leaderboards really are missing a "balanced" category. I mean, that's how optimization usually goes, no? Focusing on just a single metric to the catastrophic detriment of all others might be funny but that's about it.
cityzen 2y ago
Another one of their games, Shenzhen I/O, is one I think HN would enjoy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhen_I/O https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhen_I/O The player is tasked with creating products for clients, which involves constructing circuits and then writing code to run them.[4][5] The programming language used in the game is similar to assembly language and the circuit elements resemble simplified versions of real-world electronics.[1] One of my all time favs
bcrosby95 2y ago
Except for the simplest puzzles, you always have to sacrifice the others to minimize one. For example, area and cost oftentimes have very similar designs, except to minimize your cost you're going to be using a plain arm with tracks, but to minimize area you're going to be using an extendable arm. The extendable arm costs 40 and can oftentimes be manipulated to use no extra space, whereas the plain arm costs 20 but if you need to use tracks they're just +5 each. But if you have to use a track you're definitely using extra area. And cycle time is completely at odds with both area and cost. Using a single arm to do everything will never win on cycle time because a single arm can't keep up with how fast the game produces reagents - you need two arms for that.

stavros 2y ago

I was going to say this reminds me of Zachtronics games, but I looked it up and it is one, so no wonder.

gcanyon 2y ago

Am I the only person around who hates Steam? I would happily snap this game up except for the fact that it's on Steam. What benefit do I, as the person playing the game, get from having to run another program just to run the program I really want to run? I made an exception for N++, but even there I play it much less often than I otherwise would because I loathe the fact that I can't just double-click the game itself and go. HA! Here was my experience just now: 1. Open N++ 2. Wait maybe 5 seconds with no visible update 3. Steam opens a very primitive, very non-Mac-like dialog, to inform me it's downloading an update to itself -- 195MB!? 4. Wait for that to finish 5. Another primitive dialog: updating Steam. Not the game -- Steam. 6. Update completes. It's been about a minute? since I tried to run N++ 7. Steam presents a "choose user" dialog. I'm the only user, WTH? 8. I choose myself. Steam asks me to log in. I didn't log out, it's the same computer, why should I have to log in again? 9. Password doesn't auto-suggest. 10. I don't remember my password. 11. I give up and hit cmd-Q 12. Steam doesn't quit 13. Check the menu. Quit is disabled 14. Force-quit Steam Steam, you run other programs. That's all you do. You're bad at your job.

dgeiser13 2y ago
Don't buy it on Steam then. It's available on 2 other non-steam outlets, Gog and Itch.io.
- gcanyon 2y ago
  Thanks! N++ appears to only be available through Steam :-(
free_bip 2y ago
This comment is completely off the rails. Your extremely idealistic interpretation of "I should just run the program directly" is preventing you from gaining enjoyment out of literally the most popular gaming program in existence. And it's popular for a reason: It's really damn good at its job. All these extra steps are just a consequence of you extremely rarely opening it - steam is likely giving you the "first start" experience because it's been so long (I say this because nobody else is reporting issues like this online). I've seen it happen after certain major updates too. There's also an element of PEBKAC; password managers are a thing and make logging in take no more than a couple clicks.
- gcanyon 2y ago
  1. Other apps *ask* if they can update; Steam just does it. 2. Can you justify why Steam should *ever* log me out? 3. re: password managers -- so your answer to my complaint that I have to run/use a second program just to run the one I want... is to install a third app to make the second one less problematic? And: I *have* a password manager: the one built-in to the OS. I have over 100 applications installed; exactly one of them requires another program to gatekeep it. And I understand I'm in the minority here -- I did start with, "Am I the only one..."
  - free_bip 2y ago
    My answer to your complaint of "I don't remember my password" is that you should be using a password manager. If you are using one and forgot it anyway, this is clearly not the fault of steam. The other 2 are easily googleable/chatgptable, so I'll leave that to you.
    - gcanyon 2y ago
      I'm saying that I use the built-in password manager in MacOS. I just checked, and it has the password, but Steam apparently isn't capable of auto-filling. So I looked it up, entered it, and then steam decided that wasn't enough and I had to confirm by email, because new computer. This isn't national security, it's a $20 video game that is twenty years old, that you used to be able to play for free through flash in a web browser. Steam sucks.
klyrs 2y ago
I do hate steam! Praise be to gog!
- gcanyon 2y ago
  There's dozens of us!
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
amitp 2y ago
I'm happy with Steam on Windows but hate its behavior on Mac. It's slow and keeps stealing focus while starting up. I haven't gotten the "choose user" thing though. Cmd-Q does quit Steam for me.
- chrisldgk 2y ago
  I agree, the Steam Mac app is a lot worse than it is on Windows or Linux. I would suppose that’s because they’re just running it in some kind of wrapper rather than having any kind of native implementation, that’s just an assumption based on how it feels to use though.
btdmaster 2y ago
Assuming N++ does not have any more DRM enabled than Steam imposes on it naturally: 1. Take a look at https://mr_goldberg.gitlab.io/goldberg_emulator/ https://mr_goldberg.gitlab.io/goldberg_emulator/ 2. If you'd like to be able to start the game without Steam using that, go through https://gitlab.com/Mr_Goldberg/goldberg_emulator/-/issues/120 https://gitlab.com/Mr_Goldberg/goldberg_emulator/-/issues/12... which may or may not work. Otherwise, your sentiment is shared, Steam is a horrible Rube Goldberg machine. I've given up on it myself.
- btdmaster 2y ago
  Also found this fork for MacOS: https://github.com/inflation/goldberg_emulator https://github.com/inflation/goldberg_emulator
wheybags 2y ago
The UX of steam is bad for occasional use, but good for regular use. Regular users pay, occasional ones don't. >Steam opens a very primitive, very non-Mac-like dialog Macos is less than 1% of the PC gaming market. The decision to port to macos at all is questionable, spending extra effort to really "feel" like a mac native app would be crazy. Your experience is bad because you are not the target market.
aleph_minus_one 2y ago
> I would happily snap this game up except for the fact that it's on Steam. Opus Magnum is also available on GOG: https://www.gog.com/de/game/opus_magnum https://www.gog.com/de/game/opus_magnum EDIT: It is additionally available on itch.io: https://zachtronics.itch.io/opus-magnum https://zachtronics.itch.io/opus-magnum
Ethee 2y ago
It's comments like these that make me realize we've gone full circle in the convenience life cycle. Pre-steam when you wanted to play your game you would have to download system specific dependencies to ensure your game could run on your specific system. Most of the time these came pre-packaged with the installation files, but rarely you would just have to 'figure it out' when your game crashed upon opening. Time to spend hours trolling some forums to find the answer to the random byte string you were presented. If you are someone who only plays one game, then perfect, once you got that single install figured out you're good to go. Want to play another game? Time to figure it out again. Today you go to steam, click play, and steam just 'figures it out' in the background. Not to mention never having to deal with proper save files again because you swapped systems or the numerous other features that gamers have cried about for years. I'm not saying you should use steam if you hate it as much as you seem to. It's just really ironic to me that if all you're looking for is 'double-click the game and go' you don't want to use Steam. My favorite part of your comment is "Steam, you run other programs. That's all you do. You're bad at your job." because yes, all it does is run other programs, and that's why it's so GOOD at its job. You simply can't or don't want to understand what it's actually doing.
- gcanyon 2y ago
  oooh, thanks for the context! I've installed and run... maybe 50 games over the past 30-ish years, and every single one has run right out of the box. I'm on a Mac, so maybe that's the difference? So the meta-conversation is: why was (is?) installing and running a game so difficult? Why did game-makers suck at that, creating a billion-dollar opportunity for Steam?
  - Ethee 2y ago
    So unironically the answer to your first question is yes. After reading your other comments in this thread now I completely understand your perspective, and I hate Apple even more for it. Apple literally coddles their users to the point where they have created likely millions of users like yourself. You expect everything to conform to the Apple way, instead of you adapting to the ecosystem you are in. Apple specifically forces developers of their ecosystem to follow specific rules when it comes to installation, UX, dependencies, the whole 9 yards. It's why a lot of game developers simply avoid Mac entirely as a platform. Because it takes a tremendous amount of effort to conform to Apples silly requirements, for less than 1% user base on average (from a game developer perspective entirely). But then you may ask, well if Apple has such a standard for everything, why not everything just conform to that and we make everything easier... It's not that simple see: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ It's not that installing and running a game is 'so difficult' it's that you're expecting it to be as simple as everything else you do in your Apple ecosystem. Because that's how Apple wants it. It's entirely a perspective issue forced upon you by the ecosystem you use. The end result for all this is all the jokes we see about children expecting everything to be touch screen, or having no idea what to do with a controller when they see one. As humans we adapt to our environment, but if we're always forced into the same systems, we start to expect every system to work that way and we stop adapting.

hoseja 2y ago

I really wish there was some sort of "aggregate" score in Opus Magnum. The specialized solutions are typically really ugly and unnatural.

panic 2y ago
You may enjoy the “sum” metric obtained by adding the three scores together: https://zlbb.faendir.com/categories/SUM https://zlbb.faendir.com/categories/SUM
- hoseja 2y ago
  Thank you, that's very nice. I was skeptical a simple sum would work but these solutions indeed look very elegant. Shame this isn't in the base game.
password54321 2y ago
You don't play Opus Magnum if you think that's true.
- hoseja 2y ago
  I admit I struggle to get further into the game when I pick it up from time to time but the ingame leaderboards really are missing a "balanced" category. I mean, that's how optimization usually goes, no? Focusing on just a single metric to the catastrophic detriment of all others might be funny but that's about it.

cityzen 2y ago

Another one of their games, Shenzhen I/O, is one I think HN would enjoy: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhen_I/O https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenzhen_I/O The player is tasked with creating products for clients, which involves constructing circuits and then writing code to run them.[4][5] The programming language used in the game is similar to assembly language and the circuit elements resemble simplified versions of real-world electronics.[1] One of my all time favs

bcrosby95 2y ago

Except for the simplest puzzles, you always have to sacrifice the others to minimize one. For example, area and cost oftentimes have very similar designs, except to minimize your cost you're going to be using a plain arm with tracks, but to minimize area you're going to be using an extendable arm. The extendable arm costs 40 and can oftentimes be manipulated to use no extra space, whereas the plain arm costs 20 but if you need to use tracks they're just +5 each. But if you have to use a track you're definitely using extra area. And cycle time is completely at odds with both area and cost. Using a single arm to do everything will never win on cycle time because a single arm can't keep up with how fast the game produces reagents - you need two arms for that.