SpaceChem

[charlesr]

After seeing SpaceChem mentioned a couple of times in the GOTY 2011 article, I grabbed the demo and fired it up.

For the first 15 mins, I was totally lost, until I realised the tutorial was trying to get me to put things into a slightly highlighted box. The instructions were overall terrible - I didn't even realise a "reactor" was almost a quarter of the screen for a while, thinking I had to get it over the reactor's symbol exactly.

After that, it started to get a little clearer. Bewildering array of stuff to choose and press and it changes when you press tab. I'm used to GBA puzzlers where you just do UDLR, A and B (Guru Logic), or even just LR and A (Loopop Cube)

I've only just scratched the surface, but it's looking intersting so far.

[toythatkills]

It is completely baffling to start with, I gave up on the game at first and went back to it a few weeks later before it clicked.

There's never been a game that's made me feel so clever to solve a level though, it feels properly awesome to just sit and stare at a problem for ages thinking "this is WAY beyond me" and then clicking the "go" button an hour later and knowing that the solution you made will work.

Once you get the basics, it's pretty plain sailing as far as introducing new mechanics goes. It gets more and more complex but everything else is really easy to pick up, you just need to get over that initial hurdle. Once you've beaten the first couple of planets, go back to those tutorial levels and see how much better you can solve them with your new-found skills, amazing stuff.

[yvrmikiw]

something a bit funny about the writing staff picking a game for GOTY 2011 without ever having written a first play thread about it

maybe spend less time and energy arguing about trivial stuff and a bit more time discussing the good games

[kryss]

something a bit funny about the writing staff picking a game for GOTY 2011 without ever having written a first play thread about it

maybe spend less time and energy arguing about trivial stuff and a bit more time discussing the good games

What constitutes a "good" game is entirely subjective. Less than 1% of the forumites here play what I do most of the time, and I don't always make First Play threads because I'd rather be playing.

See, now you have me arguing about trivial stuff.