Opus Magnum

Somebody has a crush on Emma Stone... Yes, me, but also Zach I think. She kinda looks like Concordia Lem is what I'm trying to say.
Alright, I didn't finish the game and got distracted by the story. Like you're so smart.
Anyway, the game is good.

Zachtronics

Grog see game with shiny colored beads and ticky tock wheels. Grog try to string shiny color beads in right shape, but Grog not smart and it make Grog head hurt. Grog solutions take too many cycles and look like Grog ass. Maybe if you smarter than Grog you like this game.

my high school CS teacher reccommeded this game to me and i finally got around to playing it. Totally worth it. Came for the puzzles, stayed for the surprisingly good story. 10/10 puzzle programming game.

Great game, seeing how your solutions compare to others is a good feature

Another fun classic from Zachtronics. It's fun to find an elegant solution.

the tldr of this game is that it is by far the prettiest and most open-ended of the zachlikes in that solutions don't necessarily /need/ to be tied to a specific size or sort of tool (yet, anyways). this means that in some ways it's necessarily easier to brute force solutions. however, looking at the alchemical machines making their elements is incredibly soothing, and the process by which you create them is too - it's almost like if building model train tracks was fun. very recommended!

If you like puzzles and machines, buy this game! On sale or not, it's worth every penny nonetheless.

The sort of programming / puzzle gameplay of Opus Magnus is right up my alley. It's super helpful that for the main game you aren't really restricted in how bad your solution can be, so getting to the end of the game isn't really the challenge. The challenge is what you impose on yourself in deciding if you want to optimize the size, cost, or speed of your creation. I found it really fun after my first run through the game to go back and optimize my builds to see what I could do better.

A classic...

A challenging, creative, and well designed game. Zachtronics is always creating fantastic games, but this is the Magnum Opus of his entire catalogue.

Love

I have not completed this game, I may never. I Play Opus Magnum when I want to feel smart, I almost always end up wishing I actually was. I have as much fun rebuilding and improving my finished machines as tackling the next problems. I can't wait to try Zachs new game.

If you enjoy problem solving, denial & error building and watching dominoes fall, then this is a game for you.

The puzzles offer a nice increase in difficulty without ever feeing impossible to accomplish. Your tools are very powerful, and you learn different ways to approach a target so you can get higher scores

there's this weird extra logic puzzle game called "opus magnum" that came with my Sigmar's Garden purchase

My favorite part was when he says "MY MAGNUM OPUS" and the protagonist sprays his opus magnum all over the place.

More seriously, fun production puzzle game that somehow manages to make abstract spheres immersive through the story. The workshop puzzles are the cherry on top. I am too stupid for some of the postgame confined space puzzles though, but well worth the money, especially on sale.

A fun little puzzle experience.
Pros
- Good enough story to keep you invested
- Puzzles are fun and have many solutions
- Sigmar's garden is a fun sub-game, especially when your brain is a little too fried to play the main game
Cons
- Writing is hit-or-miss, some characters act like cartoons
- Really lacks some QOL features that make the puzzles take longer than they should

Overall I recommend this game for those who enjoy puzzle games.

HM WHY YES i will make this hair product in the most CRUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHZZZZAAAAAHHHH way that i can. (area used over 9000)

A puzzle game with puzzles having several solutions.
3 criteria to beat.

A fun and excellent introduction to programming without the complexity of control structures. Focuses heavily on precision of thought, state management, and discovering necessity.

this is a fun and beautiful game. The puzzles are well balanced and get more difficult as the game goes on, without frustrating the player to a level where they would want to give up. The challenge lies in making your engines more and more efficient. Hours of my life that I will never get back, but that were well spent.

This is a very cerebral game that feels like a really fun version of computer programming. A+ imho

This game is a terrible showcase of a puzzle game built off of an excellent core engine. There are 6 chapters, and I would roughly describe the experience going through the chapters as follows:

Chapter 1: literally a tutorial
Chapter 2: not literally tutorial, but you finish learning how to play here
Chapters 3-5: With one minor exception, no new ideas are introduced and the player is confronted with a homework assignment list of rote and simple programming exercises. They grow increasingly repulsive to manipulate as the complexity increases, but not more challenging or interesting.
Chapter 6: An excellent new idea is introduced in the post game, but the second half of it again grows into rote, mechanical tedium with no new ideas added. A big theme for this game seems to be "the same process works on every level, it will just take longer to reach completion".

Given that it really is one process that solves every single level, I hesitate to call it a "puzzle" game. It plays more like a unit from a math textbook where you learn the main technique of the unit and then apply it to a bunch of problems to prove mastery. The two ideas that make for some puzzles that require some innovating are infinite products and limited space in chapter 6 , but even these two twists are ruined through increasingly tedious repetition.

Now I know this all sounds very negative. Why do I recommend this game, you might ask? Despite its failings as a puzzle game, Opus Magnum is still worth playing:

* as a programming game/ engineering game/ nerd sniping game
* as long as you have self restraint and set reasonable goals; you can turn a lot of levels from rote work into worthwhile and fun puzzles if you try to optimize them (the game presents multiple metrics you can try to optimize including leaderboards of your friends list). Be wary as sometimes the effect of this is to make the level more tedious and no more fun, so pick and choose carefully.
* to generate those very cool gifs of your solution to each level, and be able to compare them to gifs produced by others and shared online

Although I feel that the immense potential this game had was squandered, it is still worth playing for a lot of people.

it was very good.

Great puzzles, satisfying to watch your creations. Great controls and UI allow you to focus on the task at hand. Highly recommended

One of the best puzzle games I've ever played

slaps

Good puzzler with room for creativity in the solutions that gets the brain flowing. Have come back to this game after a few years and my solutions to the earlier levels are still saved, so it's fascinating to see how differently my brain is working compared to my solutions back then.

they should add a level where you synthesize tylenol for the headache this game gives you

Fantastic game.
Breaks your brain alright... but that's what it is all about.
(Plus seeing all the cool machines do work is pretty.)

great puzzle game with a lot of room for creativity in how you solve problems. Watching the finished contraptions work is so satisfying. I also enjoy the overall presentation from the UI to the art style

orb

Pondering orbs

Good puzzle game. I like that any working solution is fine and you only have to optimize if you really want to (which I do, because it's fun)

Good puzzler. Has a fun story plot line in parallel.

Probably the most accessible Zachtronics game, whilst still being a great challenge to optimise everything as much as possible. I also really enjoyed the visual style and story in the game.

Beautifully made, so satisfying watching your solution play out, even if it's a slow or inefficient machine

⚙️🔮✨
🤔➡️🛠️➡️🤯
🧪🔥💧💨⚡➕🔄
⏱️📉🎯🤌
💡🙌🧠💥

This game is magical to me. I am bad at it

I accidentally pressed the Button to Resubmit my Machines and It felt like having a Brain Aneurysm. 19/21

Its fun and challenging. Worth the time :)

I love this game so much! Made me feel as if I was very smart! And it's so fulfilling!

Decent and interesting puzzles. Couldn't bring myself to finish since closer to mid/end puzzles became rather bothersome to do. Without any in-game reason to do puzzles elegantly and guides you start just bruteforcing them, which isn't that fun anymore. Still a positive experience overall.

Extremely fun and addictive. The leaderboard histogram really is the key. I'll finish a challenge then go back and try to create a completely different version that minimizes cost, and another that minimizes area, and another that minimizes cycle times. Then I'll see that someone somehow did it in less cycles than me, or cheaper, or in less area, and I'm obsessed to reinvent a solution again to beat it. Also in one attempt where I was trying to minimize area, it felt like I was actually trying to solve my own slide puzzle solution, with my own area constraints forming the puzzle. My only fear is that it will be over too soon.

You program an alchemy machine to produce the wanted output from the available atoms on a hexagonal board. The mechanics are straightforward and grant a lot of freedom to get your creativity going. There is also a little learning curve to it where you learn the alchemy engine and how to optimize it.
I enjoyed it greatly, even going back to all puzzles to create optimal configurations which is it's own 3 challenges for each puzzle again. Really tickles the mind and scratches that good puzzle itch.

fun

great game

like Zachtronics? I hear it's just like all their other games. I haven't played them.

I recently gifted this game to my mom (who does not play video games) and she is currently having a blast wracking her brain against this game's puzzles. Opus Magnum manages to provide a challenge without sacrificing accessibility, and I would recommend it to just about anyone.

A truly satisfying puzzler, with a surprisingly engaging plot and aesthetic. The ruleset is small and easy to understand, but can be combined with almost unlimited complexity. The hex-based tiles, and pivotal(hah) importance of rotations really stretches those spacial-reasoning skills in a lovely way.

It is also Turing complete; how can you go wrong.