
Zachtronics: Ten Years of Terrible Games (2017) [video] - Red_Tarsius
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df9pz_EmKhA
======
AlEinstein
If you've not heard of TIS-100 then, given that you're currently on a site
called "Hacker News", I heartily recommend it to you:
[http://www.zachtronics.com/tis-100/](http://www.zachtronics.com/tis-100/)

Also excellent is Shenzhen IO: [http://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-
io/](http://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-io/)

Also excellent is everything here:
[http://www.zachtronics.com](http://www.zachtronics.com)

~~~
ThrowawayR2
Every time I think about playing those games, I can't help but be dissuaded by
the likelihood that learning actual machine language for ARM or x86-64 would
be considerably less difficult and, in the long run, more beneficial to me.

~~~
djmips
Along the same lines, why spend all that time on this game when you are a
programmer in real life! I look at games as a change of pace / relaxing not
more programming. ;-)

~~~
w0utert
In the case of TIS-100, I don't think the challenge of the game is 'write
assembly' as much as it is 'deal with the somewhat crazy architecture and its
self-imposed restrictions'. I've programmed some 6502 and x86 assembly in the
past, but it didn't look anything like a TIS-100 program, which is more like a
ridulously simplified transputer network with memory-less nodes.

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Tepix
Zach also wrote Infiniminer (
[http://www.zachtronics.com/infiniminer/](http://www.zachtronics.com/infiniminer/)
) , which was the main inspiration for Minecraft.

" _Infiniminer is a first-person competitive mining game that takes place in a
procedurally generated block world allowing players to mine, build, and
explore. Sound familiar? That’s because Infiniminer is the game that started
the “block genre” that everyone knows and loves!_ "

Download at
[http://thesiteformerlyknownas.zachtronicsindustries.com/infi...](http://thesiteformerlyknownas.zachtronicsindustries.com/infiniminer/)

~~~
correct_horse
I watched an interview in which Zach said that he gave infiniminer away for
free because he didn't think anyone would want to pay for such a game.
Ironically Minecraft is the video game that has sold the most copies.

~~~
wccrawford
My understanding is that Minecraft exists because Zach refused to takes
Notch's suggestions on how to improve it.

So Notch wrote Minecraft, a better version, and sold it. And it worked out
really well.

Infiniminer might have sold, but it wouldn't have sold as well as Minecraft.

And Minecraft then brought traffic to Zach (via people wanting to learn about
Infiniminer) to drive sales on his other games, which seems to have worked out
well in the end.

~~~
j-pb
Still bothers me that with Notch we now have one more right wing white
supremacist billionaire, while Zach seems to be a really nice guy that would
probably have used that money for some common good like education :/

~~~
Dude2029
So right-wing that he paid his taxes in Sweden.

~~~
madrix999
Notch is litteraly throwing around the n-word and other really awful shit,
what point are you even trying to make?

~~~
workethics
What point are _you_ trying to make?

Throwing around the n-word makes him a bigot, not right-wing.

~~~
rtkwe
He's also embraced some of the deepest of right-wing craziness, Q, and was
often parroting right-wing talking points with bonus homo- and trans-phobic
tweets salted around.

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joshschreuder
Also worth listening to the Zachtronics Podcast

[http://www.zachtronics.com/podcast/](http://www.zachtronics.com/podcast/)

There hasn't been a new ep in a while but it's an interesting insight into
behind the scenes of developing games (and whatever Universe Sandbox is)

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azhenley
Zachtronic games are great. If you want something you can play on your phone,
take a look at Human Resource Machine. Different developer but still a coding
game.

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theelous3
I was quite a big fan of Shenzhen IO.

I found myself wanting to take it in to the real world, but really lost as to
where to begin. Anyone have any ideas or resources?

~~~
chapium
Bread board and an electronics kit can get you started. Circuit logic works
even iff all you have is a 9v battery.

