Zachtronics fanboy

I am a huge Zachtronics fanboy.
That's a large statement which isn't particularly backed up by anything but I admire him a lot. For those of you who don't know Zachtronics LLC is an American independent video game development studio founded by Zach Barth. What is remarkable about Zach is he "made" minecraft before minecraft came out. The programmer behind "infiniminer" a game from his own website (Link) to be described as "a first-person competitive mining game that takes place in a procedurally generated block world allowing players to mine, build, and explore". Which of course sounds a heck of a lot like minecraft. The game itself most likely inspired the "block" genre of games even though this is very circumstancial and doesn't really proove anything this just stands to show I think he's cool.

For more designers it would be a depressing life from there BUT not for Zach! He went on to pioneer yet another "genre" of games self proclaiming them in his book Zach-Like as Zach-Like's. These games are programming and engineering puzzle games which sounds like an abstract concept but leads to very fun and enjoyable games. I like them. The most attractive one maybe opus Magnum as you can see what is going on and don't require any of the programming bits.

Anyway idk what else I have to say other than these are cool games. err I think they are cool I could probably do a walkthrough of the tutorial but who wants that unless these moving images don't make sense then maybe message me :P

Exapunks : Aethetically NOT PLEASING

I enjoy Exapunks another game by Zachtronics but it just isn't as appealing to watch. This stems from the lack of physical relations
In Opus Magnum you can imagine physical pistons and motors combinging parts but exapunks uses small robots. It makes it very hard to understand as it is mostly a programming game and less an engineering game. An example of this would be here is a level from exapunks I will let you try with the goal and gif AND code to figure out what's going on and then explain it! :P

The tutorial level is given to you in the ZINE!(seemingly these aren't on the internet I hope i don't get sued for putting them up here I think it's cool :Sweat: Probably also has my details in :sweat:
Ok this game is cool it does come with it's out of game guide which plays into the story and all that which is cool :P but

Tutorial 1

The goal for this level is simple move the file 200 to the outbox and leave no trace which means I cannot Leave a little robot in the system.

The Robot Code!

What's going on?

Bascially the robot links (moves) into the large area
Next it grabs the file 200!
Links to the final area!
Drops the file into the final area
Terminates itself as to leave no evidence!

Did you get it!??! I hope so as the next ones will be harder!

Tutorial 2

The goal for this level is the exact same as tutorial 1 BUT you must add the first two values of file 200 then multiply the result by the third and then subtract the fourth value, finally appending the result to the end of the file before depositing it in the outbox!

The Robot Code!

What's going on?

It again moves to the inbox
Grabs the file!
But here it copies the file's first value to the X register inside the EXA (cute robot)
Then it adds the file's value to X and stores this too in X!
Next of corse multiplying the file's value by x and storing in X.
Finally subtracting the file's value from X and then copying it to the file
I learnt that you don't need to drop the file if the robot terminates!
This code is really bad and I could easily improve like storing values instead of copying them over??? Especially prevelent in last subtraction. Maybe you saw this too! :P

Did you get it?

Good Luck! This one is further in the game!

As the tasks progress through the game they get harder :P
For this we are to connect to each radio station and replace every song in the playlist with "can't get over you" by "ME2U" which are stored in file 300 respectively.
To connect to radio stations a list of phone numbers are avaliable in file 301.

The Robot Code!

What's going on?

THERE IS TWO ROBOTS!

Robot XA!

This grabs the file with the phone numbers in and links to the main port
Then it copies -8 into the T register (The T register is the conditional register and is false if 0 else true.
Here it will mark L which is just a branch point which we will use to loop through phone numbers.
It will then copy from the file to the dial 10 times as phone number 10 long which will open a port between the EXA BLASTER and radio station.
Add 1 to the conditional register.
Copy -1 to dial which will reset the connection so the next number can be dialed
Check if the conditional register is True if so branch to L the mark from before.
If it has dialed 8 times KILL the other exa and then link back to our pc as to not leave any data behind.

Seems Complex Now for the second EXA :P

Robot XB!

THIS IS THE SUCIDIAL ROBOT MAKER
This robot grabs file 300 containing the song title and artist.
It copies the title into the X register and band into the T register.
It then drops this file as it won't be coming back home :tear:
Link with the EXA-BLASTER!
Create branch point DANGER
This is the last point this robot will ever reach
Make a clone of itself starting at the branch point Bot.
Branch to Danger
This will loop forever until it is killed by XA
This code makes me self concious of what I name my shit kekw

Replicated Bot!

The replicated bot will start at bot
It will try and link with 800 which would be the radio station, if none are open this will terminate the robot ending its life :(
If the replicated bot makes it thru it will grab file 200 and make yet another replication of itself starting this time at B.

Bot B will spend its life copying the T register into the global register M forever.

Back to OUR bot. He copies the register X to F overwriting old song titles WITH "CANT GET OVER YOU!!!
Then copies global register M (provided by bot B) to F overwriting old artists with "ME2U"!
He will then Test EOF which will change his T register to either 1 or 0 depending if true or false.
If false aka not end of file will branch back to A and copy the song title and artist once again.
If True and is in fact end of file will kill the other robot and die from being out of commands.

Did you get it? I forgive you if you didn't this one was :O

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