#SPACECHEM INTRODUCTION FREE#

In a typical puzzle game, the early puzzles were easier because the designers started the player off using the absolute basic mechanics to solve easy solutions. The other being the horror-puzzle game: Catherine. Going back to SpaceChem, it is one of only two puzzle games that immediately came to mind that were based around subjective difficulty design. Sometimes it can be crazy to see how your solution compared to other people. Normally these types of games are harder at the start but become easier as the playerвЂ™s skill level increases through play. While the gameвЂ™s challenges remain static, it is the playerвЂ™s knowledge and skill that grows over time. Subjective Difficulty is where the gameвЂ™s overall difficulty is based on the playerвЂ™s skill level, as opposed to any in-game bonuses or unlocks.ДЄ typical subjective difficulty game is where the player is given a variety of abilities and mechanics from the start and is challenged by learning the proper ways to make use of them.

Games like Dark SoulsВ featured a different kind of difficulty that I wrote an article on a few years ago. To understand what made SpaceChemВ different from a traditional puzzle game we need to talk about a game that had a similar design philosophy: Dark Souls. From the outside SpaceChemВ was a science fiction game that taught chemistry, but in fact it was a puzzle game that was about the building blocks of programming and that is where my love-hate relationship came into play. What made SpaceChemВ so intriguing was the depth that was under the surface. In these levels you controlled the supply chain of elements from their storage tanks, to the reactors and finally to the spaceship awaiting pickup.В Then there were special levels where you had to deal with an enemy using buildings on the map and the chemical resources available. Now you were not just running the production of one reactor, but multiple reactors. The difficulty of SpaceChemвЂ™sВ puzzle design was very different from traditional puzzle games and IвЂ™ll be coming back to that in a minute.ДЄfter you had several opportunities to work with the reactors, the game changed up the formula.

#SPACECHEM INTRODUCTION FREE#

The majority of commands that you could give the waldos were available from the get-go and you were free to use any of them to solve the puzzle. Puzzles with multiple reactors upped the challenge and required the player to think on a grander scale. At the beginning of the game, the puzzles revolved around working in single reactors and taking the inputs and producing the correct compounds to be outputted. What was interesting about SpaceChemВ was that the game started out both simple and complex at the same time. Each reactor also had two input sides and two output sides, obviously the elements came in from the input sides and you had to place the correct compounds on the output sides.

Each waldo followed a corresponding colored path and would perform tasks that matched the same color. In each reactor you had two different waldos: blue and red. To do so, you set up the programming and paths of waldos which interacted and moved the elements through the reactors.

Your job revolved around reactors: massive buildings set up to receive basic elements and combine them into new compounds. The plot of SpaceChemВ which was discovered through solving the puzzles was that you were the newest recruit for the SpaceChemВ Corporation: the leading manufacturer and shipper of chemicals in the known Universe. SpaceChemВ was a brilliantly designed puzzle game that I simultaneously love and hate. For me, my current video game white whale is the title: SpaceChem.ДЄ little over two years old, and I just reached the fourth planet. The term: вЂњwhite whaleвЂќ is commonly described as someoneвЂ™s insurmountable challenge: Something that we canвЂ™t conquer, but canвЂ™t stop trying.

Spacechem introduction