No, I am not talking about TEST.
Human Resource Machine is a neat little "programming" game. It's basically a game where you have to solve logic puzzles in the style of basic programming. No, you do not need any programming experience, but it helps. More important are your logically thinking skills. One task for example is to output the bigger of two numbers. Sounds easy, but you cannot compare the numbers as you only have a limited set of orders you can work with. So you have to find a way to compare these numbers only using subtraction, which isn't that hard, but later in the game there are some really hefty tasks for the limited tool set you have at your disposal.
The story is this: You are an employee at a heartless corperation and are tasked to find solutions to various math problems. Realitively quickly you realize that something is wrong and the corporation doesn't seem to really know what they are doing...or do they?
The game manages to sooth you in with easy tasks and for the first 20 levels you will find yourself rushing through the levels. But not for long. For me it was level 21 'Fibonacci Visitor' where I ran into a brick wall. I was sitting at my PC for 2 hours trying everything to solve this puzzle until I felt like my brain is going to have a stroke.
Again, don't forget that you only get some basic tools to solve the puzzles. Add, sub, bump+, bump-, jump, jumpifzero, jumpifnegative, copyto, copyfrom, is basically all you get. Oh, and lables so you can at least make notes within your code to remember what each line does. And that's good, because codes can get very long. The UI isn't the best for this though. You have three tabs you can use in each level do try other solutions without overwriting your previous code, but the scrolling is painful. Also you have to write the lables and the code by hand/mouse, the keyboard doesn't work. This is probably due to the fact that a mobile version is planned. Which is great news. I can see myself playing this on a trip to somewhere, better than crossword puzzles.
It is available on Steam for 10$/€ and if you like logic puzzles and programming it is absolutely worth it. If you cannot live with the fact that you cannot write code with the keyboard you may want to look into TIS-100 which graphically is a more basic approach to this type of game, but has keyboard support.
Wanna see some more? Check out GiantBombs Quicklook, but I recommend to just dive in and not to get spoiled.
Cheers
Privateer TypeO
Human Resource Machine is a neat little "programming" game. It's basically a game where you have to solve logic puzzles in the style of basic programming. No, you do not need any programming experience, but it helps. More important are your logically thinking skills. One task for example is to output the bigger of two numbers. Sounds easy, but you cannot compare the numbers as you only have a limited set of orders you can work with. So you have to find a way to compare these numbers only using subtraction, which isn't that hard, but later in the game there are some really hefty tasks for the limited tool set you have at your disposal.
The story is this: You are an employee at a heartless corperation and are tasked to find solutions to various math problems. Realitively quickly you realize that something is wrong and the corporation doesn't seem to really know what they are doing...or do they?
The game manages to sooth you in with easy tasks and for the first 20 levels you will find yourself rushing through the levels. But not for long. For me it was level 21 'Fibonacci Visitor' where I ran into a brick wall. I was sitting at my PC for 2 hours trying everything to solve this puzzle until I felt like my brain is going to have a stroke.
Again, don't forget that you only get some basic tools to solve the puzzles. Add, sub, bump+, bump-, jump, jumpifzero, jumpifnegative, copyto, copyfrom, is basically all you get. Oh, and lables so you can at least make notes within your code to remember what each line does. And that's good, because codes can get very long. The UI isn't the best for this though. You have three tabs you can use in each level do try other solutions without overwriting your previous code, but the scrolling is painful. Also you have to write the lables and the code by hand/mouse, the keyboard doesn't work. This is probably due to the fact that a mobile version is planned. Which is great news. I can see myself playing this on a trip to somewhere, better than crossword puzzles.
It is available on Steam for 10$/€ and if you like logic puzzles and programming it is absolutely worth it. If you cannot live with the fact that you cannot write code with the keyboard you may want to look into TIS-100 which graphically is a more basic approach to this type of game, but has keyboard support.
Wanna see some more? Check out GiantBombs Quicklook, but I recommend to just dive in and not to get spoiled.
Cheers
Privateer TypeO