![]() In some ways this makes puzzle design easier, as it avoids the chicken-and-egg problems that arise when designing a puzzle and its solution simultaneously.Īn exciting side-effect of creating puzzles this way is that they end up being more open-ended and start to resemble the kind of problems that engineers and designers face in real life. Because of this, we were able to design almost all of the puzzles without knowing how they might be solved, focusing instead on making sure that each challenge was logically unique and could not be solved by repeating a previous solution.Īfter playtesting the levels, we reordered them, removed logical “duplicates”, and filled “gaps” to create a fairly linear (albeit steep) difficulty curve. The standard gameplay “formula” for SpaceChem is to give the player a set of tools (instructions and reactors), a challenge with a clear end condition (create molecules X, Y, and Z), and an empty area in which to create a solution. We Created Open-Ended PuzzlesĪlthough we made a lot of questionable development decisions, the game’s open-ended puzzles are unquestionably the biggest thing we did right without them, SpaceChem would not be SpaceChem! The Codex of Alchemical Engineering, the predecessor to SpaceChem. I started developing the game in my spare time with a coworker from my day job, eventually growing the team to seven people before shipping SpaceChem. The idea evolved over the next six months, picking up a cosmic horror story with boss battles in the process. Thinking back to the idea for a chemistry-inspired Codex sequel, it occurred to me to combine the low-level manipulations of the Codex with a high-level pipeline construction mechanic. Despite this, making immediate sequels is not in my nature, so I set the idea aside and moved on.Ībout a year later I visited Gas Works Park in Seattle and was inspired by its derelict chemical processing pipeline. Since Codex was already a simplified model of molecular bonding, expanding into chemistry proper would provide more mechanics (such as multiple bonds between atoms) and puzzles (different compounds, from simple ones like water to more complicated ones like benzene). You can move the SpaceChem folder anywhere you want, but it must be launched from within the spacechem directory.Shortly after releasing The Codex of Alchemical Engineering, a Flash game about building machines that create and transform alchemical compounds, I started thinking about a chemistry-themed sequel. To launch SpaceChem, change directories to inside spacechem and launch it through Mono: * Now you can delete everything in the temporary directory but the spacechem folder, which contains the game. * ~/temp$ mv opt/zachtronicsindustries/spacechem/. * Extract the game files from the Debian package. * Copy b or b into a temporary directory. ![]() ![]() Next, from bash or a similar command-line interface: * Mono WinForms library (Debian package "libmono-winforms2.0-cil") * Mono WCF 3.0 library (Debian package "libmono-wcf3.0-cil") First, you need the following libraries installed: If you cannot install the Debian package successfully, you can manually extract and run SpaceChem. * Click the “install” button in the package installation program. When it completes, select the “b” package. O If you are on an amd64 (64 bit) platform, double-click the “make-amd64-package.sh” script. ![]() O If you are on an i386 (32 bit) platform, select the “b” package. Don't worry, Ubuntu won't let you install the wrong one! * In the extracted folder, open the correct Debian package for your platform by double-clicking on it. * Wait for the package to finish downloading. Streamline your designs to meet production quotas and survive encounters with the sinister threats that plague SpaceChem. Construct elaborate factories to transform raw materials into valuable chemical products! In this game you will take on the role of a Reactor Engineer working for SpaceChem, the leading chemical synthesizer for frontier colonies. Zachtronics Industries is back with an ambitious new design-based puzzle game. ![]()
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