by Or: Opus Magnum, TIS-100, and Shenzen I/O
I’m putting the Zachtronics studio and all their games into Tier 1, alongside Obsidian Entertainment (makers of Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, and the only good Fallout). I can confidently say that any game made by those studios will be at least entertaining, if not extremely good. Zach-likes tend to be puzzle games with very similar concepts, but with just enough theming and execution differences to make each one feel unique. Perhaps the best part of these games is the moment when you discover a unique solution that gives you the same feeling as if you’d just solved an interesting math problem or figured out a clever programming solution at work. If neither of those sound fun, I would highly recommend running away from these games.
TIS-100
The first game I played from Zachtronics, TIS-100 is an “assembly language programming game you never asked for.” You find an old computer in your grandfather’s garage after his passing, and you decide to boot it up. Your grandfather had been working on fixing it, but its now up to you to follow in your grandfather’s footsteps, find the notes he left behind, and perhaps solve the deeper mystery.
This is the first game I played with a mandatory manual (besides other Zachtronics games, the only other game like this was Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes). You typically need to have both open for quite some time, since the game itself tells you very little about how it works. This is a common theme in Zach-likes: the first part of the game is puzzling out how a system works, the second is solving the puzzles and finding edge cases, and finally you go back and realize how terrible you were at the beginning and do it all better.
Shenzen I/O
After writing that last paragraph, I realized I don’t have all that much more to say about either of the other games. Shenzen I/O is different in that you play as a engineer making small electronic gadgets for a Chinese company. There’s the added bonus of reading the conversations among your coworkers, but the core mechanics all carry the same idea, even though the execution is entirely different. Shenzen I/O also introduces a better version of Solitaire (another theme of Zach-likes is the bonus mini-game that you can play while taking a break from puzzle solving).
Opus Magnum
Finally, Opus Magnum is a decided step away from the “near future computing” of the other two – you are an budding new alchemist setting up alchemical algorithms to build substances, and there’s a mini-game similar to the Cracker Barrel.
End
I hadn’t realized before starting just how similar all three of these games are, conceptually. Every criticism or praise I can level at one, I can level at another. Yet at the same time, all three are distinct and worthwhile. It’s a fascinating accomplishment.