
Designing Zachtronics' TIS-100 (2015) - bantunes
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/244969/Things_we_create_tell_people_who_we_are_Designing_Zachtronics_TIS100.php?print=1
======
spjwebster
I recently lost more of my life than I care to admit to Zachtronics' more
graphically pleasing follow-up Shenzhen I/O [1] that I think I first heard
about from HN [2].

The backstory that unfolds through your fake inbox actually gives the
devilishly tricky game some direction, and the post-solution histograms
showing just how many people solved the same puzzle cheaper, with fewer
instructions and with lower power consumption than you tug at your ego and
keep you obsessing over the same puzzle long after you've solved it. There's
even a fun Solitaire variation buried in there for good measure, which was
evidently so popular they also released it as a standalone game [3].

1: [http://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-
io/](http://www.zachtronics.com/shenzhen-io/)

2:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12660253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12660253)

3:
[http://store.steampowered.com/app/570490/SHENZHEN_SOLITAIRE/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/570490/SHENZHEN_SOLITAIRE/)

~~~
psyc
The mechanic of graphing metrics for solutions is common to at least TIS,
Shenzhen, and my favorite, Infinifactory. It's perfect for competitive
tinkering.

~~~
Deimorz
SpaceChem does it too. It's also great if you have people on your friends list
that play the games, since then you can see their exact scores and turn it
into a direct competition.

~~~
daemin
Yep, I've spent days tweaking and optimising the starting few worlds of
SpaceChem to get solutions which are most optimal. The only disappointing
thing is that you can only save one solution to each challenge, so it means
you need to pick a solution that is either the fastest or the one with the
fewest elements. Luckily they have fixed it with Infinifactory.

------
asciimo
The first time I heard about this game someone mentioned another assembly
language game called Human Resource Machine. I was so captivated by the design
of HRM (I'm a fan of the publisher, Tomorrow Corporation, thanks to Little
Inferno), I forgot all about TIS-100. I'm happy to be reminded.

Seems that the Internet likes to compare these two games. Here they are
compared on Slant.io:
[https://www.slant.co/versus/6230/6231/~tis-100_vs_human-
reso...](https://www.slant.co/versus/6230/6231/~tis-100_vs_human-resource-
machine)

~~~
makmanalp
Does anyone remember a similar thing that's not a game but an emulator-ish for
a very simple cpu + color screen that people made small games / demos on? I
wish I remembered more details or that I'd bookmarked it when I saw it...

~~~
asciimo
This is a stretch, but could you be thinking of PICO-8? It's a "fantasy
console" that you can write 32k game cartridges for using a subset of Lua:
[https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php](https://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php)

~~~
makmanalp
OH MY GOD you got it on the first try ... months of frustration ended. Thank
you so much.

~~~
khedoros1
I think about the CHIP-8 VM, then the CHIP SBC, and its PocketCHIP variant,
which comes with Pico-8. They're all kind of intertwined in my mind, and
thinking of any one tends to lead to all the others.

------
katamaritaco
I had a blast with TIS-100 and Shenzhen I/O when they came out, but for some
reason I never picked up Infinifactory until yesterday. I'm so glad I did.

Zachtronics games give me that feeling of zen that is increasingly harder to
find in games nowadays - the "Oh dang it is 2am already, I thought it was like
9pm!".

I'd recommend checking out the aforementioned titles, as well as some of the
'other games' on the website[1], like Ruckingenur-II.

[1]: [http://www.zachtronics.com/ruckingenur-
ii/](http://www.zachtronics.com/ruckingenur-ii/)

~~~
AgentME
Don't forget SpaceChem! It's less-obviously-programming compared to some of
the others but it has very similarly-compelling puzzles. It might be my
favorite from Zachtronics.

------
zokier
The problem I have with TIS-100 is that everytime I play it, I begin to think
how cool it would be to have actual physical TIS-100 machine and end up
distracted by thinking about the HW design

~~~
TeMPOraL
Similarly with Shenzhen I/O; I constantly think if I could make those
microcontrollers as e.g. WiFi-enabled devices with small screens (e.g. via
NodeMCU). You'd program and wire them with your computer or a smartphone, but
the point would be that each such device executes its own piece of code,
displaying the code and the state of registers on its small screen (and signal
routing would go through the network for simplicity).

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
Someone needs to make physical Shenzhen I/O components, maybe powered by
arduino. Then we can have fun putting them together like Legos.

------
melograph85
This game is wonderful and I lost much time to it.

Then I lost even more time reimplementing the game in JavaScript and trying to
solve the puzzles with genetic programming. I did not get very far.
[https://github.com/melograph85/tis100](https://github.com/melograph85/tis100)

------
nebabyte
I love this guy. Funnily enough I was just reflecting a couple days ago on my
admiration of his stance on the whole Infiniminer/Minecraft thing.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14945713](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14945713)

------
pcblues
I spent some time playing this. Loved the manual and the old school aspect.
Suddenly, I thought that every hour I spent in this I could be learning real
assembler or another language that I could use IRL - solve real git-hub bugs
for fun, etc.

~~~
Cogito
That is a deep well to dive down. It's similar to the feeling I get when I am
procrastinating on the weekends - I want to be 'productive' which in that case
means spending some time playing one of the games I have going.

The feeling of "I could be using my time better".

The main difference here, specifically, is that the game has a well defined
set of constraints. It is a limited environment with a known correct solution;
it has an achievable goal.

There are well defined and measurable metrics, and you quickly learn
systematic methods to improve your results with respect to those metrics.

Furthermore, the ability to achieve the goals and improve your stats is
entirely within your own control.

Unfortunately, the real world is a mess of subtle complexity. Sometimes not so
subtle!

Constraints are poorly defined if at all. Often there is no 'known correct'
solution, because most of the time there isn't a well defined problem. Bug
reports are a good counterexample to this, however.

Often the metrics aren't defined at all, or different people measure them in
different ways. Most of the metrics people care about won't be measured
automatically, and you have a limited ability to directly incrementally
improve them.

Lastly, your ability to make any impact at all is almost always dependent on
other people working with you to that end.

There have been lots of attempts to 'gameify' real-world code development; I
wish the world weren't so complex. Sometimes I wish I didn't have that nagging
in the back of my head that I could be spending my time better, but to be fair
it's probably the one thing that keeps me from getting bored!

------
manaskarekar
Decent podcast episode with Zach as a guest: [https://theamphour.com/332-an-
interview-with-zach-barth-of-z...](https://theamphour.com/332-an-interview-
with-zach-barth-of-zachtronics/)

------
fzeroracer
I met Zach a few years ago when he spoke at a community college in my
hometown. Super nice guy and it was interesting to hear him talk about his
games. I was quite literally the only one that played his games in the room
though.

------
axus
He wrote Infiniminer, which was an inspiration for Minecraft

------
westmeal
Honestly TIS-100 feels like it would be an extremely comfortable 16 bit
machine to program for IRL. I've wasted 40 hours of my life on it so far and
I'm ashamed to say it's been funner than most 'real' games I've been playing.

I wish there was an environment that could simulate 100s of TIS-100 "cores"
but I guess I'd need to write it myself.

~~~
Jtsummers
[http://www.greenarraychips.com](http://www.greenarraychips.com)

They make real world chips that are much like the architectural concept in
TIS-100.

~~~
westmeal
Whoa that's sick.

------
gregwtmtno
This game had me seeing TIS-100 assembly in my sleep. Perfect difficulty level
for me. Challenging but not impossible.

------
CommissarBas
Funny, I just started playing this again this week. I remember spending some
time 1.5 years ago but since then, I did much more programming on the job.
It's good to see I learned how to think in another way. :-)

------
SN76477
More than puzzle games, Zachtronics create true problem solving games that
suck you in like nothing else.

------
bachaco
Yep, agree. My record so far is creating a bunch of crap.

