The hardest computer game of all time | Hacker News Reader

The hardest computer game of all time

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276 pointstptacek63 comments

For a more modern entrant in the genre of games that are secretly programming, I can't recommend Spacechem enough:

http://www.spacechemthegame.com/

Surely a bit less difficult than Robot Odyssey, but immensely enjoyable nonetheless. I finally forced myself to uninstall it after spending waaaay too much time hyperoptimizing my solutions against the online leaderboard... it was rather addicting. :)

The developer of SpaceChem also created The Bureau of Steam Engineering http://www.zachtronics.com/bse/bse.htm and The Codex of Alchemical Engineering http://www.zachtronics.com/alchemy/alchemy.htm which are both free.

Incidentally, I didn't realize that he was the creator of Infiniminer. For those unfamiliar with the game, it is what inspired Notch to create Minecraft.

Oh man, Codex of Alchemical Engineering is a game that brings back very fond memories. In fact, he also made KOHCTPYKTOP: Engineer of the People http://www.zachtronics.com/play-kohctpyktop/ another game that I used to love.

I'm glad this guy went into game-making.

Great stuff, just started playing Alchemy, only on 3rd level but it really reminds me of geometry constructions like http://sciencevsmagic.net/geo/# .

SpaceChem is one of my most-used examples for "this is what happens when you take a game mechanic and optimize it to infinity". Amazing depth and complexity and a really long play-through that stays interesting. And then that leaderboard pops up and makes mockery of your past hour of work, egging you on to beat the curve somewhere. I love it.

I had a discussion with the creator about beating the last level. I had a solution that solved 95% of it, but I have no idea if it was close to working. Zachary confessed he hadn't beaten it either, but he did prove that it was possible.

On another note, the histograms you get after beating a level are the best high score screen implementation I have ever seen. I gush over them whenever I get the chance.

> I actually quit playing SpaceChem because the difficulty of the puzzles progressed to the point where I felt I should be getting paid to solve them.

I have (or had, I guess) the same sort of response to the score screens at the end of a Firefight game in Halo ODST. It would show you charts and tables for your progress through waves, your weapon usage and kills per enemy, a graph of your deaths, etc. Every game should provide stats like that.

I actually quit playing SpaceChem because the difficulty of the puzzles progressed to the point where I felt I should be getting paid to solve them.

Fascinating! After reading this I was encouraged to see if anyone had covered the game on YouTube and found a guy who did a whole let's play series on it while explaining what he was doing and how the puzzles worked. Part 1 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJeseZEZn6Y for anyone curious.

"Famous strongbad line".

It's bizarre that this guy would refer to something so obscure as famous, and yet I knew exactly what he was talking about (put mouse over 'email'):

http://homestarrunner.com/main13.html

Rarely does a game from that era have that much complexity, and in CGA. Wow.

Also, an ASCII guide to gates:

         output  input(s)

                +
     NOT   --o< |--
                +

               -+--
     OR    --(  ( 
               -+--

               -+--
     NOR  --o(  ( 
               -+--

              --+--
     AND   --(  |
              --+--

              --+--
    NAND  --o(  |
              --+--

               - +--
     XOR   --(  (( 
               - +--

               - +--
    XNOR  --o(  (( 
               - +--

{C,P,N}MOS transistor implementations are exercises for the reader. :)

Apparently it's an Apple II game, not a CGA game. I was fooled too though.

Thanks. s/CGA/HGR{,2}/

Neat read (I never coded for Apple II):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_graphics#High-Resolut...

Actually, they did port it to IBM PC and TRS-80 Color Computer.

There is also a clone written in Java, Droidquest, which contains all of the original levels and an additional secret level: http://www.droidquest.com/

A similar (and undoubtably simpler, although still often infuriating) but still fun logic/programming game is Manufactoria[1].

Spoiler: Vg'f onfvpnyyl cebtenzzvat n uggcf://ra.jvxvcrqvn.bet/jvxv/Gnt_flfgrz

[1] http://pleasingfungus.com/Manufactoria/

The modern version is probably what kids are doing iwth Redstone in Minecraft:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc6spHvGPtQ

Not to talk about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgWyg3LL_kM

i love how minecraft has this redstone system. the latest update also added a cloning command, so you no longer need to repeatedly make the same circuts again and again - you can carry a command block, and click a button to clone a circut/place it, leading to better abstraction.

I _LOVED_ playing Robot Odyssey as a kid.

I've always been surprised how obscure it is. Never did clear the thing but I finished at least 80% of it before I was 14. I must be a lot dumber now.

Edit: I just gave GATE a try. Ugh, I can't get past level 15.

Make it 20. lol

Gate?

http://www.quinndunki.com/OGOL/GATE.html

Oh I enjoyed this game when it came out. It was what convinced me I had made the right choice to get an EE degree rather than "just" a CS degree. I really wanted to connect programs to thrusters, not just subroutines.

Same here. I was 8 or 9 years old and couldn't understand how chips worked. They were just sort of magic to me, so I wired all my solutions without chips. It required a massive mess of logic gates to solve things like the Ventilation Shaft and Minefield puzzles in level 4.

The signals puzzle in level 5 was as far as I could get... but it got me hooked on algorithmic problem solving.

Edit: to get an idea of the complexity of the puzzles, here's a link to a walkthrough of level 4:

http://mysite.verizon.net/thomasfoote/DQ/id28.htm

I actually did the exact same thing! I staid away from the chips because they were to black-boxish and then gave up on level 5.

I have yet to see a current-gen game with as awesome a circuit wiring mechanic as RO.

It's almost like Max+Plus II for the Apple II.

So I did CS & Eng, the courses we had that covered parameterized digital blocks (& Verilog/VHDL) were ECS 154A and B

Reminds me of ChipWits. God I so loved that game.

http://www.chipwits.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChipWits

http://www.richardsnotes.org/archives/2005/03/29/chipwits/

I found the source code of the remake (DroidQuest), which is no longer available for downloaded at http://www.droidquest.com for whatever reason. Here it is: http://svn.krischel.org/viewvc.cgi/branches/droid-quest/

Robot odyssey was hard. I got the third robot, but never actually finished.

But man the hitchhiker's guide text game was impossibly hard.

(From memory - SPOILER!)

>Take tea

   You cannot take that.

   You have:
    
     No tea

>Drop No tea

   Taken.

Brilliant! :D

O. M. G.

That's how you do it?

It's not that simple, of course. First you have to transport a miniaturized version of yourself into your own brain and remove your common sense.

So... this game is a prerequisite to run for any major US Office?

1000 times yes. Back in 7th grade I'd beaten all the zorks and countless other adventures. Never did manage to figure out HGTTG. It's my white whale.

Really cool. I hadn't seen this game before, but the idea is dear to my heart since a few years back I developed a similar iOS app called Circuit Coder. Sorry for the shameless plug, but if you're into games like this, it might be worth knowing about.

Just wanted to give a quick reply – I purchased your app when it first came out and I love it to death.

Thank you for that!

Thanks! So glad to hear that!

Never played the game, but reading about this reminded me about how awesome my life is. There are so many great games and other resources out there. I just started to brush up my math on Khan Academy for fun.

While it is commonplace to complain about the youth an how spoiled they all are we should remember that young people today have a plethora of ressources at their hands and if pointed into the direction of the nearest hackerspace, or community garden or similar open and encouraging environment, they can do and learn whatever they want.

All we as parents and grown ups have to do is to point them to these opportunities and to encourage them to explore their talents.

Wow, thanks for posting this. I read about this game on Micah's blog a few years ago and while I had forgotten the name until now, it's been stuck in my mind ever since. Maybe I'll actually give it a shot this time!

Inspired, I tried DroidQuest, but can't get figure out the controls. I feel like I'm missing something really dumb, but all I can do is move around the starting menu, how do I select something?

Try the tutorials. Instead of entering Robotropolis sewer, just head down and start with "Robot Anatomy".

There's a readme.txt included with the game :)

This is probably the game that had the most impact on my interest in computers as a kid.

I think all we had access to were cracked versions in Juneau, Alaska where I grew up (I remember it as a "Black Bag Crack"), so I don't think it was possible to finish the version I played. Regardless, in 4th grade I loved it, but I don't think I actually got that far.

However, I realized later that it had given me the foundation of my understanding of digital logic. It's kind of awesome when I think about that.

Another tough one is englishcountrytune [1] from stephen lavelle

[1]http://www.englishcountrytune.com/

i have a friend who's crazy about that game - it's more a spatial reasoning puzzle than logic based (ala, building a circuit).

This game also helped define me. I remember running around 5th grade thinking in my head 'beep pause pause beep beep pause'.

I created a parallel to serial and back set of chips to create a remote control system to get through the invisible maze level.

I played this on either a Tandy color computer 2 or 3 ... not sure which. I wonder how many engineers/programmers this game created. Such great memories.

I was almost certain that this would be about QWOP.

I'm one of those weird guys who thinks this game would be a whole lot more fun if all you had were NAND gates.

If you like really hard puzzle games, give "Puzzle Moppet" a shot sometime... I recently got an email from a hardcore puzzle fan who has been playing it on and off for a year, but still was unable to complete it.

The gameplay isn't particularly innovative though, and it didn't sell well.

There's an early windows game Bug Brain which sounds quite similar. You're building brains of various insects and worms from single neurons to perform various tasks.

My parents got me this game, way back when. I think I got half way through it before the game sapped my will to continue.

Masquerade for the Apple ][ would probably qualify as one of the hardest games ever to come out on this platform.

The headline made me come here to talk about Battletoads but the article left me kinda disappointed...

Are there any working ports for Mac?

archive.org has it in its Apple II disk image collection:

https://archive.org/details/apple-ii-disk-collection

Just need an emulator.

And a scan of the manual:

https://archive.org/details/Robot_Odyssey_1_1986_Learning_Co...

You can also find a DOS port online. And play it using Boxer.app boxerapp.com

The guy in the above mentioned 'lets play' videos says that the DOS version (he has) has a bug which lets you use the soldering iron in the tutorials but not in the actual game.

I think it's the copy protection which can be bypassed by a patcher at http://scanlime.org/2009/04/a-binary-patch-for-robot-odyssey...

http://www.droidquest.com/

Here it is running on my Javascript Apple 2 emulator: http://porkrind.org/a2/?disk=Robot%20Odyssey%201.0%20Side%20...

I miss Datasoft's Alternate Reality.

It all seemed reasonably simple until I saw you can put chips inside robots and chips inside chips. Let this be a lesson to you kids - nothing can complicate things like recursion can complicate like recursion can complicate like recursion can complicate stack overflow error things.

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