View Full Version : Spacechem - Best game of all time
Spacechem (http://store.steampowered.com/app/92800)
I recently have embarked on a love affair with this game. It's a puzzle game centered around programming reactors to combine atoms.
Wait, come back.
In this game your aim is to design a system that will take some atoms, join/split them as necessary and then output them out of the other side of the grid. Your system will be required to loop correctly so that it can potentially run forever without further input. Levels start to get more complicated as you move on from not only designing a single reactor but designing multiple ones where the output of one is the input of another to ultimately make whatever molecules you need.
Seriously, this game is great. It's the sort of game where you look at a level and you're all like :eek: but then you solve it and you're all like :cool: until you view the next level and you're all like :eek: all over again. I've never played a game that made me feel both monumentally stupid and really clever as much as this game does. Even better is that the game stores your best scores for beating levels as quickly or as with few commands (symbols) as possible so I can beat everyone else's scores and then tell them how great I am.
SupSuper
9 Jul 2011, 16:14
I got this game in the Steam Summer deal and holy crap it is the best puzzle game ever. The sheer variety of puzzles and features, the fun programming logic, the awesome music and the fact there are infinite possible solutions for every puzzle so that you'll always be pondering day and night just how much better you can optimize everything, specially with the leaderboards constantly rubbing your suckiness in your face, it's kept me addicted since purchase and I don't think I'll stop anytime soon.
It's the sort of game where you look at a level and you're all like :eek: but then you solve it and you're all like :cool:Then you look at the leaderboards and you're all like :eek: but then you beat all your friends and you're all like :cool:.
Paul.Power
9 Jul 2011, 19:03
It's damn good fun. Found some solutions I'm pretty proud of (my favourite puzzle to tinker with so far has been It Takes Three, the one where you make ammonia). Found a 14 symbol (but 233 cycle) solution, and a 119 cycle (but 32 symbol) one.
It's a lot of fun to look at your friends' scores when they've beaten you and reverse engineer how they got the solution ("Melon did that puzzle with only 7 symbols? How on ear- oh. Oh.").
I've reached the first boss but I've had so much fun going back to the first world and improving on my disastrous first attempts that I haven't really attempted it yet. I caught the itch when I noticed SupSuper was beating me on the third level by just 1 cycle, but then I managed to shave off two cycles and turn the tables. Take that!
SupSuper
9 Jul 2011, 23:18
I've reached the first boss but I've had so much fun going back to the first world and improving on my disastrous first attempts that I haven't really attempted it yet. I caught the itch when I noticed SupSuper was beating me on the third level by just 1 cycle, but then I managed to shave off two cycles and turn the tables. Take that!
You'll be happy to know I manage to shave off another two cycles off my solution then. :p
And the first boss is stupidly easy but it sure puts a twist into your mindset thus far.
Oh god what am I doing (http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/541773029983648232/EA35A77BAF76BB2F5F91C34EEDB3029BD4284E43/)
My terrible, terrible attempt at the third planet's optional level. Was almost 3 times slower than SupSuper's attempt. What was I thinking?
So I hopped out of bed this morning because I had a brilliant idea about how to beat that level only using one reactor. Was a bit more complicated than I was imagining, but it worked. Managed to beat my cycles, reactors and symbols best scores all at once.
Here's my solution, but it is spoilers!
LINK (http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/9304/spacechem1reactor.png)
Not complicated at all.
I am massively far behind, considering I've already said that one of his older puzzle games is by far my favourite Flash game. Seriously, I've only played two hours and beaten two worlds.
And the Australium levels. Which... only Sup did too? You guys suck.
This game is indeed awesome.
Although, I'm the sort of player who starts to randomly play around with silly solutions and then gives up way too easily.
Another great feature of the game is the text-based background story which is only spiced with a few hand-drawn pictures. It revolves about you being a young, prospective chemical engineer on some far away planets and moons, harvesting resources and discovering some obvious, looming secret.
The music is also very good. A groovy, chill-out soundtrack that is quite calming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8JwvtVs38
Also, Zach the from the one-man-army developer "Zachtronics Industries" is the guy who made Infiniminer, the game which Notch/Mojang's "Minecraft" was inspired by/plagiarized from.
Pro tip 1: Unless you buy the game cheaper from some sale, I highly suggest you go directly to the devs website and buy there (supports PayPal too), as you will pay $15 and don't have to deal with Steam's silly 1$=1€ policy.
You still get a key to redeem your game on Steam though.
(Also, I'm not sure if you can play a Steam game on Linux, which Spacechem supports, so you probably need to go this way of purchase anyway.)
Pro tip 2:
There's a DLC pack which you can redeem for free with those Steam Summer Sale tickets.
Hurry up though, it'll only last for ~5 more hours.
Oh, and the "published" (read: editor's choice) user-made levels are actually worth playing!
Which is surprising considering, y'know, they're:
A: User-made levels.
B: Downloadable for free.
Even Professor Layton couldn't go with its one-a-week downloadable puzzle thing without a YOU DON'T USE THE SCALE AT ALL puzzle.
SupSuper
11 Jul 2011, 16:55
Probably my favorite feature is how the game keeps an infinite undo history for every level which makes messing around with solutions so much easier.
The music is also very good. A groovy, chill-out soundtrack that is quite calming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk8JwvtVs38
It's also available for free: http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/83228
Also, Zach the from the one-man-army developer "Zachtronics Industries" is the guy who made Infiniminer, the game which Notch/Mojang's "Minecraft" was inspired by/plagiarized from.He also made all those cool gadgety Flash games (http://www.zachtronicsindustries.com/) if you're more engineering-oriented.
It's also available for free: http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/83228
If you like the SpaceChem soundtrack, you'll like that guy's other similar album:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/4383
It was the one used for Codex of Alchemical Engineering.
Which is that favourite flash game I was just talking about. Go play it. Now.
Also, Zach the from the one-man-army developer "Zachtronics Industries" is the guy who made Infiniminer, the game which Notch/Mojang's "Minecraft" was inspired by/plagiarized from.
I'd like to say that saying Notch plagiarized from it is way too harsh, since the idea is basically Lego, it was a matter of computer power stopping people before, and it was really his fans and not him that brought the whole construction element into light. Buuuut when Notch keeps accepting all those innovation awards...
Oh yeah, and Infininimer sucked. Really badly.
(What? It's not all praise for Zach in this thread!)
I'd like to say that saying Notch plagiarized from it is way too harsh, since the idea is basically Lego, it was a matter of computer power stopping people before, and it was really his fans and not him that brought the whole construction element into light.
Well, Apple are suing for a minuscle "i" in front of a products name... :rolleyes:
I like how Jamendo offer P2P download links but no seeders xD there's at least 3 people trying to download the songs too for SpaceChem via P2P. I looked at there P2P links because there direct link downloads at 120KB/s or less though admittedly it IS free so I can't really complain.
SupSuper
13 Jul 2011, 10:50
I'd like to say that saying Notch plagiarized from it is way too harsh, since the idea is basically Lego, it was a matter of computer power stopping people before, and it was really his fans and not him that brought the whole construction element into light. Buuuut when Notch keeps accepting all those innovation awards...
Oh yeah, and Infininimer sucked. Really badly.
(What? It's not all praise for Zach in this thread!)
Everyone knows Manic Digger (http://manicdigger.sourceforge.net/news/) is much better anyways. It's not plagarism if everyone does it! :p
I like how Jamendo offer P2P download links but no seeders xD there's at least 3 people trying to download the songs too for SpaceChem via P2P. I looked at there P2P links because there direct link downloads at 120KB/s or less though admittedly it IS free so I can't really complain.
Well it's just 30MB, but just for you bunch, I direct downloaded and seeded it.
Well it's just 30MB, but just for you bunch, I direct downloaded and seeded it.
That won't help him and his Aussie internet. :p
You take that back boi! I download just fine at 400KB/s -_-" (From servers that don't fail)
You take that back boi! I download just fine at 400KB/s -_-" (From servers that don't fail)
The s is supposed to stand for second, not season.
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