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GAME OF THE DAY: SPACECHEM

Full disclosure here: I haven't really gotten all that far in this game. But this is a blog not a review so who the heck cares about when I write about the damn game. Anyways, I'm going to go ahead and say that this game is really, really hard. I enjoy a good puzzle game now and then, but they're not really my forte, I get bored of them fairly easily generally. Spacechem is so difficult and involves pretty much 100% of your mental faculties that I couldn't possibly be bored because I'm so busy trying not to throw my laptop out the window in a chemistry filled rage.

Spacechem has you, essentially, creating various chemical compounds using what is essentially a visual programming language involving two simultaneous streams of actions called waldos, divided by color. The game starts out pitifully easy to teach you what the commands do, and lead you unto a false sense of security I'm sure. It then gives you what seems like a simple task, and just says "go do it". The game switched from tutorializing to meat of the game so fast that I was left puzzling out the next solution for like a half an hour. And whenever you complete a mission you get a nice series of charts that show you how complex your solutions were compared to others. (Complexity is bad!). And it turned out that more often then not my solution was really, really complex.

Now this could very well be that I'm terrible at the game. I would accept that. There are some incredibly Youtube videos of awesome creations people have made online that are staggering in their complexity and length. Despite the game's difficulty, the game still manages to give you a huge feeling of satisfaction upon completion of any of it's puzzles. It's difficult, but not in a way that makes it seem impossible. It's difficult in a way that leaves the solution dangling just out of reach, as if one more piece of the puzzle would solve it and make everything work off without a hitch. And when you finally get that whole system working, and sit back and watch as the program sets up 10 of whatever chemical you had to make, it's very satisfying. It's similar to the feeling you get from beating a tough boss in Dark Souls. And, to top it off, the game is really cheap and even available on IOS. You have no excuse not to check it out!

OTHER GAMES I PLAYED/HAVE BEEN PLAYING/PLAYED BEFORE/FINAL THOUGHTS

Played some more Dustforce the other day, and have realized that there are some clear differences between the character. The pink one seems to be the best at jumping, for example, and as a result has become my favorite. She also attacks the fastest, but has the shortest reach. I got a bunch more keys and unlocked a lot of levels, and I look forward to playing more of that.

I need to stop playing Katawa Shoujo. Please. Somebody help.