Players would then share their text on the forums, bragging about how few cycles they had been able to complete each puzzle in. The Codex of Alchemical Engineering saved players' progress but not their specific solutions - however you could export the text instructions for that machine to be shared elsewhere (to this day, Barth is still not sure why he coded the game this way). It was the Kongregate community that sowed the seed for the GIF function. "Some people were making money, but I was like, 'No, I don't care about that, I'm making these for fun, for myself.' Which is weird now and sounds crazy even coming out of my mouth, because I'm all about the money now apparently.
"I didn't want to make money making indie games," he recalls. Initially only available through Barth's website, players encouraged him to publish Codex through Kongregate, suggesting he might make more money that way. Like Opus Magnum, this revolved around building a machine that took elements and combined them together. For its origins, we need to go back to The Codex of Alchemical Engineering, a Flash game Barth and his colleagues developed before the studio had even formed - "the first hardcore Zach-like, if we can call it that," he says. Instead, Opus Magnum - actually the second Zachtronics title to include a GIF feature - is built upon learnings from past games. Before the game even had graphics, it had GIFs" "We built it into Opus Magnum from the beginning. "Can you imagine being that kind of game designer?" "No, that would be terrible," Barth laughs. Was it a goal of the studio to develop a title that was inherently GIFable? spoke to founder Zach Barth earlier this year about the art of making such complex puzzle games instantly understandable, aided by the use of GIFs.
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In fact, all of its titles have now been made free to educators. Opus Magnum is one of many games from developer Zachtronics rooted in scientific subjects, with a view to exploring subjects like chemistry, industry and (in this case) programming. In just one looping image, you instantly get a sense of what the game is about: creating machines that automatically assemble different components together into the required structure. The alchemical puzzler has something of a viral quality with fans sharing their solutions to each of its puzzles via social media and forums in the form of GIFs. If you’d still rather wait for the final version, though, know that the price won’t go up post-Early Access.It's likely that your first encounter with Opus Magnum was something like the image below. “The game features a fully realized story-driven campaign, and includes a puzzle editor, Steam Workshop integration, and localization into six languages from day one of Early Access.” How far along is development? “I was actually tempted to skip Early Access for Opus Magnum, as this is by far the most polished game we’ve ever released as an Early Access title,” says Zachtronics.
It’s out today on Steam Early Access.Īs a talented alchemist, you’ll piece together the “transmutation engine- the alchemical engineer’s most advanced tool- and use it to create vital remedies, precious gemstones, deadly weapons, and more.” So, it’s another game of automation and efficiency, one in which “dark plots swirl around the city’s ancient Houses.” There’s also an alchemy-based solitaire mini-game included! The developer’s new title, Opus Magnum, certainly follows in the footsteps of SpaceChem and Infinifactory in that regard. Zachtronics makes a certain type of puzzle game for a certain type of player to experiment with, learn, and strive to eventually master.
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