SpaceChem is a game

I like thinking because I'm wicked smart. Honestly, I'm probably the smartest guy you know. I'm about as smart as five Einsteins. If there was, like, five Einsteins I could probably just drop some amazing science on them and they'd be like, 'Shit bro, that's some amazing science you just dropped on us. You're smarter than all five of us Einsteins put together.' And I'd be like, 'Yeah, I know.'

Puzzle games.

I wouldn't exactly say that I like puzzle games bacuse for me the genre is so broad. They can vary so much from title to title, I'm always a bit sceptical but I'm always ready to try something new. About 9 out of 10 puzzle games I won't like. About 1/10 I'll play a bit. And the other 10% I will be completely obsessed with. To whit; SpaceChem.

SpaceChem is an engineering design game where you have to make chemicals out of other chemicals. Which basically boils down to bonding or un-bonding atoms, represented by balls. You set up kind of conveyor belt production lines with a series of commands along them to make things happen as your ball passes over them. Its a kind of programming / design type deal. Then there's a sort of upper design level where you can link together several of these individual 'factories' to make your final product. I'm not sure I've explained it that well.

Anyway, this is one of those games that starts off pretty simple and then ramps up quickly. The basic elements don't change, but what you're being asked to do gets more and more complex. Honestly, about a third of the way in it gets damn hard. Damn, damn hard. You gots to get your think on.

One of the things I like about it is that there's clearly no single correct answer. So long as you get your final result, it doesn't matter how you get there. And in fact, sometimes you'll end up withsome really messy, ugly, slow, inefficient design that you know is nothing like the best possible answer. But so long as you make your required result, you can continue.

Anyway, simple but complex, elegant, ball-burstingly difficult at times but really fun (imo). Give it a look-see.

http://www.spacechemthegame.com/