Quick Look: Opus Magnum

Hour long quick look with Vinny? Hell yeah! That's exactly what I need right now.

I have been playing this for the last week and it is great. I just wish Vinny would use the return to start position command more.

So glad to see a quick look for this, absolutely phenomenal game

Also, Vinny does a really good job explaining everything and seeing Dan be way into it is so awesome

This was basically my GOTY. I'm kind of addicted to Zachtronics games, but I'm way more of a visual thinker and I struggle with programming. Spacechem/Infinifactory especially was my shit and I had a harder time with TIS-100/Shenzen. This game is more like Spacechem than any of their other games and I'm so happy about it. And also bashing my head against a wall about it. Forever.

If anyone's ever been interested in Zachtronics games but been too intimidated to jump in, Opus Magnum is an excellent starting point. One thing that this game and Spacechem have in common is that the campaign progression does a really good job of teaching you and introducing you to more and more complex concepts, while being a good level of challenging the entire time.

Oh man, between the misunderstanding of cyberpunk (cyberpunk and steampunk couldn't be more different) and Dan on alchemy, this starts rough...Vinny, save us please <3

Dan should watch the documentary full Metal alchemist a real documentary about a real profession

Thanks for the quick look. @vinny You could always use one reset instruction further along the timeline to stop unwanted repetition while stepping through your alchemy.

Pro-Tip (if it's not already mentioned in the video): You can right click and drag the timeline left/right to put in more instructions that will fit in that initial view.

That might seem obvious but it wasn't until I got to like the last set of stages that I realized I didn't have to fit ALL the instructions in that one space. This made certain very easy puzzles VERY difficult.

I will finally get to see what this game is since a lot of people mentioned it in the guest top 10s.

The pusher is here to protect you from the terrible secret of space

Super glad to see this QL'd. @vinny I can empathize with not wanting to have to think this through on camera, but y'all did just fine. There are (almost) always better ways to do it, but there's also never a wrong way!

For anyone who gets into this game: the other recent Zachtronics games - Spacechem, Infinifactory, TIS-100, Shenzhen I/O - basically all work like this one does, with similar problem-solving methods and metrics used to measure success. However, the relative straightforwardness and visual appeal of this one probably makes it more approachable. Just know that if you like it, the other games are similar in a lot of ways and well worth checking out.

e: I've maybe never heard Dan as incredulous as when he sees Lytebringer's rocket propellant solution. "One thing???"

Here's my solution for the waterproof sealant you guys did:

One of the best games of last year.

Oh man, I love this game, but when Abby said "Has it loaded yet?" I burst out laughing! Definitely a hard-core puzzler.

This game is rad. I had a similar process to Abby, Vinny, and Dan when I was going through the game initially, where you get partway through a solution, realize something isn't quite working out, and end up just kind of adding bullshit onto until you have some weird janky thing that crosses the finish line. Optimizing seems daunting, but once you start to pick up the basic techniques, it's really satisfying to apply them.

For example, here's a different way of cycle-optimizing Rocket Propellant than the one shown at the end of the quick look. You can lose days getting stuff like this just right, especially on the more complicated levels.

This was one of the most fun Quicklooks. I would watch a series of these 3 playing this game!

SA turns 20 next year. Wow, now I feel old.

It is possible to select a group of arms / glyphs and rotate them by pressing A or D while they are selected (and you are holding them with the mouse), and you can fast forward to a point on the timeline by holding ALT and clicking on the timeline.

I have over 100 hours in this game and have solved every official puzzle (and probably 20+ from the workshop), most of them I have several solutions for. I love how there isn't only one solution, that there are many ways to make something that works, but if you want if very fast or very small or very cheap, you can put in the time to optimize your solution.

Love this game, it's definitely one of the most newbie friendly games that they've done. It got me into their other games. Now I'm toiling with electronics programming in Shenzhen IO and oh boy does it have its hooks in me.

@blister: Oh my god I haven't thought about that video in probably over 10 years.

Yall should really play Infinifactory. It is imo the best and most approachable of his games.

I started playing this game after seeing it on so many guest top 10 lists and I absolutely love it. I immediately thought- “wow I wish Vinny would play this game because it is entirely his shit” so I was super happy to see east do a quick look! I’m sure you already got this a bunch but you can just put a reset command further along the board instead of right when it finishes it’s actions to give each of your mechanisms the much needed blank space instead of fiddling with extra release commands. So glad to see other people enjoying this phenomenal game!!!

This was one of my favorite games last year, glad to see the crew liked it. Love seeing how different the solutions can be in this game, here's my bad solution for the rocket propellant:

Yeah Dan's enthusiasm is very infectious :D

I'm glad they showed some of the community solutions, that stuff is insane, i really like this game!

Of all the crew I really didn't expect, that Dan will be fascinated by this game, Man still surprises me...

Does this game eventually do the 'separate reactors working together in a single level thing' like in Spacechem? Because that got pretty crazy.

I think is going to scratch a very similar itch to Factorio. Less of the total base building (which I love, I love it so much) but more of the small component, sub-assembly design work. I always want to like puzzle games, but I am just not good at them. This game looks so cool, because it is a puzzle, but the freedom to create my own solution changes the game (pun intended) completely. Thanks Vinny and crew.

@joeblank, it does not. I don't think a lot of players really liked that part of Spacechem and they never picked it up again

@joeblank:

Yeah. I actually think that I like this more because Spacechem sometimes got really frustrating when you found out too late that some early reactor in your huge process was not working fast enough and that you needed to restart the complete project.

The official soundtrack to my lunch hour.

Pfft. Jeff is the one true cyberpunk messiah. :b

I thought we had reached Peak Dan, but he just outdid himself by thinking alchemy is real (or pretending to, anyway).

Really glad to see this game getting some love, it was one of my favorites last year!

Here's the dumbest solution I've done: https://i.imgur.com/D2AlE9o.gifv

Over 1000 cycles, and the scripting was incredibly tedious, but it was the only way I could wrap my head around that puzzle.

Zachtronics games are my jam.

Also Abby's reaction to Vinny opening the browser in steam overlay is odd.

@cmaciej: I think it totally makes sense! The amount of time he put into building ridiculous mario maker levels that are incredibly intricate kind of carries over to this

This may use mystic alchemy and not actual chemistry, but I can't help but think it promotes the mechanical methodical thinking required for leaning actual chemistry. It definitely reminds me of some of the step by step processes from annoying long chem labs, even if the actual steps are not proper chemical processes.

@dasakamov: I have great respect for Jeff because of his perfect track record of quoting Neuromancer whenever cyberpunk is mentioned.

It's not a documentary, dum dum. It's a historical reenactment. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred.

LyteBringr is totally Elon Musk.

Also, alchemy can be steampunk... it can also be used in many other genres and settings. Usually it's medieval fantasy. Fullmetal Alchemist is more dieselpunk as the age of steam is over. It can probably be in cyberpunk too if you have a mixed sci-fi fantasy setting like Shadowrun. Forget if my friend who plays it has mentioned alchemy in that specifically.

To be fair to Dan, there are some people out there who do believe alchemy is real. Then again these are probably the same people who think the Earth is hollow and Nazis have a base in Antarctica flying vril powered UFOs.

@austinmiller: but... you know that this game is "visual" programming, just really, really well disguised...
It's a far cry from Mario maker to Opus Magnum. In some alternative/parallel universe I picture Dan leaving Giant Bomb to kick off hist new startup company in silicon valley ;]
However it's more likely that he'is more interested in this sort of thing:

to be fair, alchemy is considered one of the starting factors for modern chemistry, it isn't necessarily true by stating this, but it did lead to the analytic mindset of modern science. It was the early days of chemistry and asking "why?".

https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/big-history-project/stars-and-elements/other-material3/a/from-alchemy-to-chemistry

Congrats to @danryckert for knowing some of the periodic table. (I can't remember most of it)

I learned Ag = Silver from a young age, due to growing up with the actual first name of "Silver". Even in Signing Exact English, where most people have a Name Sign (not normally a word, but an abbreviated way to say their name), mine is just the same as the sign for Silver.

I love this game, and most of the rest of Zachtronics stuff. And this quick look went better than I would have expected really heh. Enthusiasm and decent puzzle solving skills on show, even in a 'design by committee' situation.

And because everyone loves more gifs, here's my Rocket Propellant and Explosive Phial fastest attempts:

I was hoping Vinny would play this, seems right up his street, Dan too with his fondness for logic puzzles, love the game and most of Zachtronics stuff. Ive been playing a minimum cost run so far but I'm definitely gonna do it again with fastest solutions. If you like it also try Spacechem (there's a quick look I think), mechanically similiar.

After reading the Alpennia series, I'm definitely up for some alchemy!

@grace_omega: I mean, alchemy IS real. It's just bad science now. It's a precursor to modern chemistry and medicine. Even Isaac Newton fiddled around with alchemy.

It's a bit reductive to say alchemy is just people trying to turn things into gold, et cetera.

Can I second this?

Or multiplayer Factorio. That would be good too. :D