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Comment by Adamantcheese | Hacker News Reader

And if you like those, any of the Zachtronics series of games are perfect. Spacechem is a personal favorite (machine layout programming), but there's also TIS-100 (modular system programming), SHENZEN IO (modular digital logic programming), and Opus Magnum (machine layout programming). The last two are actually upgrades of older games they made, KOHCTPYKTOP and The Codex of Alchemical Engineering. I'm hoping that Ruckingenur II gets an upgrade eventually (debugging! in a video game!).

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SHENZEN IO was my favourite by a mile. Although looking through a datasheet half-written in Mandarin to understand what was going on, at 2am, to then go into work at 6am and look through more datasheets half-written in Mandarin - well, I swiftly began to question my life decisions.

You should check out EXAPUNKS if you haven't. It similar to SHENZEN I/O, but I like better.

I've played all his games and they're all fantastic. EXAPUNKS is probably my second favourite, but I'm an EE engineer so SHENZEN I/O is especially satisfying to me. Zachtronics games are my vice. As a recovering self-confessed video-game addict I only allow myself to play educational/puzzle games now, and they toe the line just enough - while being fun as hell.

Theres a steam bundle of all the games for folks who somehow don't already have them. I donno if 9 hours of the HN spotlight shining on them created the bundle, which would be creepy-cool, or if its been there forever. At any rate, it would be a good deal for programmers who don't already have the games. I enjoyed the experience of reading the TIS100 manual, its probably worth a significant fraction the cost of the game itself LOL. $70 will buy you a dozen hours of the latest FPS sequel, or hundreds of programming puzzle hours...

Now, for another blast from the past, who remembers programming MSP430 code using the "Lockitall LockIT Pro"? Its a somewhat more serious "game" in the same genre. I found a printed manual for my Lockitall next to my TIS100 printout. I see the website is still up. My printout has a copyright date of 2013. I remember I was inspired to buy actual '430 hardware to play with, and that dev board is still laying around in my basement somewhere.

Don’t forget EXAPUNKS!

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