After having folks design molecules in SpaceChem and automated plants in Infinifactory, Zachtronics are back with another puzzle game of complex systems. What comes after atoms and factories, the whole dang universe? The multiverse? Nah, you write assembly code.

Today Zachtronics both announced and (sort of) released TIS-100 [official site], a game about rewriting corrupted code to fix a fictional ’80s computer. It’s on on Steam Early Access now for 4.49. My prediction: their next game after this will be to literally program SpaceChem.

… [visit site to read more]

The world’s most accurate ranking of the 25 best puzzle games ever to reach a computer. Plucking the peak of PC puzzling, we break down what makes them so special, and put them in the correct order. Read on for more time travel, rearranged tiles, hidden objects and hexed cells than you could ever want.

… [visit site to read more]

Zachtronics has linked the SpaceChem molecule to the Infiniminer molecule to create and announce their new game: Infinifactory. It’s “Like SpaceChem… In 3D!” says the site, which sounds like a very good thing when you consider that SpaceChem broke the brains and captured the hearts of just about everyone at RPS who played it.

There’s only a little information about this new game, but it’s about designing and running factories and optimising them via histograms just as before, but now you’ll be doing it in “exotic alien locales” with a “next-generation block engine”. Alright. It’s due in Early Access later this year.

… [visit site to read more]

Now, let’s be clear. When I say “Hey, Sokobond has been out since September but now it’s on Steam,” I don’t mean to imply that you should refuse to buy games not on Steam, and I don’t want to encourage people who do. But a game being on Steam always draws more attention, and launching on Steam can reintroduce it to a larger audience. A Sokoban-y puzzler shifting and bonding atoms to form chemical compounds is a quiet and unassuming sort of game, after all. But a good one.

Hey, Sokobond has been out since September but now it’s on Steam.

… [visit site to read more]

We have, in the past, said some very nice things about brainosaurusly brilliant puzzler SpaceChem. For instance, things like “straight up genius.” Also, “brainosaurusly brilliant.” That’s technically the past now. But Zachtronic Industries – booming center of commerce that it/he is – refuses to stick to the straight-and-narrow. Which brings us to Ironclad Tactics, a “real-time, card-based tactics game set in an alternate history Civil War – with steam-powered military robots.” To which I reply by gathering a studio audience, teaching them to cry on command, and then having them give a standing ovation for 45 minutes.

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After a brief foray into the world of music, the Humble folks are back with their third Android bundle. Which is also a PC, Linux and Mac bundle too. Buy them, and you’ll get versions for each. In there this time are BIT.TRIP.BEAT, Fieldrunners, SpaceChem, Uplink and for those who pay above the average, début release Spirits. So that’s quite an… wait, what, Uplink’s out on Android!

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Onlive and the IGF are spooning for a fortnight. The sensual lovers are celebrating the Indie Gaming New Year by giving you access to 30 minute demos of 16 IGF finalists. The alphabetically sexy list of games is: Atom Zombie Smasher, Be Good, Botanicula, Dear Esther, Dustforce, English Country Tune, Frozen Synapse, FTL, Lume, Nitronic Rush, Once Upon a Spacetime, POP, SpaceChem, To the Moon, Toren, and WAY. (more…)

A new update to SpaceChem has arrived, adding a sandbox mode to the brain-challenging indie wonderpuzzler. I haven’t tried it yet because I can feel a vein beginning to throb in my temple as soon as I think about the possibilities. There is a competition to find the best creation and this quote to introduce it doesn’t help matters:

I suspect that some people will be building molecular computers, but that certainly doesn’t mean that’s the only thing we’re looking for.

So, they’ll be building molecular computers, will they? If I load this up there’s a very real chance that it’s the last anyone will hear from me until I’m found with my entire face clenched into four square inches of pure concentration as new elements spew catastrophically from my motherboard.

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Hopefully this is happier indie price-experimentation news than the below… What began as really little more than pay what you want for one game – that being Frozen Synapse – has been slowly expanding to be some> games, as appears to be Humble Bundle trends. You’ll be very glad to hear that the very, very good Space Chem is the latest addition, joining Trauma which was bundled in earlier this week. And yes, this works retroactively for people who already bought the FZ bundle. So, whatever you have given or are prepared to give, you’ll end up with FZ, SpaceChem and Trauma – and if you beat the average price you also get a package of Frozenbyte games to boot.

All the games are available in PC, cultist PC and hippy PC flavours, by the way.

If you don’t know what Space Chem is, then boo. BOOOOOO. And also read this.

For my money, überpuzzler SpaceChem is still the best indie game we’ve seen in 2011. You can read Wot I Think here, but don’t just take my word for it- even renowned X-Men author Kieron Gillen said that it’d been a long time since he’d played something “so obviously genius”.

As of this weekend, developer Zachtronics has just upended another frothing beaker of content into the deadly vat of entertainment that is SpaceChem. By which I mean they’ve updated it. I’m talking Team Fortress 2 tie-in items, I’m talking 12 new levels, I’m even talking about a new level editor and inbuilt sharing options to make sure there’ll always be some hateful new puzzle that will paralyse your mind like a King Cobra. Details after the jump.
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