I have a suspicion that Zachtronics may be a machine. Let's look at the evidence: Spacechem and the excellent Infinifactory are both complex logic puzzles about efficiency; very appealing to a machine mind, no doubt. Then there's the new game, TIS-100. It's not just the fact that it's an "open-ended programming game", but that it's being released into Early Access just months after Infinifactory's own Early Access release.
To be fair, the scope seems to be less broad than with Infinifactory. Firstly, there's the price, which comes in at a lean £5/$7. And then there's the fact that it looks like this:
"It’s the assembly language programming game you never asked for," writes Zachtronics, correctly predicting that no, I have never asked for an assembly language programming game.
In TIS-100, you're presented with corrupted lines of code that must be rewritten to repair the system and unlock its secrets. It's a puzzle-based hacking sandbox, with an '80s style reference manual that you can print out and use.
As with Infinifactory, TIS-100 is coming to Early Access in a near-finished state. The Early Access period is expected to last for one to two months, and could result in "new puzzles, new sandboxes, new assembly instructions, and even features as big as Steam Workshop integration if there is sufficient demand."
