Langweilige Story, stummer Hauptcharakter... warum ist es immer das gleiche?
Lasst doch einfach die Story weg, wenn sie keiner sehen will.

Das Gameplay ist wirklich mehr Arbeit als Freude.
Man lernt "programmier"-Eingaben und schreibt sie dann in die Befehlbox.

Zork 1 wäre stolz.

This game certainly isn't for everyone, but I love everything about it. This is a programming game where you control tiny robots and move them around different areas to complete tasks, usually of the sort like "hack a radio station", "rob a bank", and "send neural signals from your brain to your arm so you can have motor control". Now when I say this is a programming game, I mean this is a programming game. You control the robots by programming them in a custom assembly language, complete with manuals (included PDFs) that teach you how it all works. The whole world is set with 1980s sensibilities but with futuristic capabilities, it's really neat. Unlike the other Zachtronics games I've played, this one actually has a plot, and it's not half bad. The music is also phenomenal, I've been listening to it regularly on my own. I will say the technical specifications of the EXAs are pretty limited, as (warning: nerd stuff) you only have one general purpose register, a shared general purpose/test register, an intra-machine global register which you can't guarantee the receiver, and a file pointer. It's pretty limited, but yet some people have managed to make entire video games in it.

One of Zachtronics bests.

With Zachtronics closing, and just releasing their final title, the Solitaire Collection, Game Pass is getting my favorite game from Zachtronics. This is a coding game where players will program little drones to do jobs inside cyberspace, as well as the human body. It’s a strange idea, but as always it’s a chance to use assembly language to solve problems and optimize your code.

Which is also a negative. This is a pure programming game, where you will use a manual to learn the language, as well as about the world, and then write actual programs that execute. I’ve said before with TIS-100 and Shenzhen I/O that if someone completed this game authentically, I’d consider them a solid programmer, and it’s one of the reasons I love this series because I do it professionally. So the positive is that it’s an amazing programming game, and the negative is it’s a programming game.

Pick this up if… I just said it, If you like programming games. This is just an exceptionally well-done game, and optimizing programs or just solving puzzles is so good. The interface is amazing, and the concept is interesting. There’s a story like always, but as it's been said this will be about writing code.

If you want to see more from me: Check out my video on this last month of Game Pass games: https://youtu.be/5_7MTcN1-Ac

A refinement of the Zachtronics formula, EXAPUNKS is somewhere between SHENZHEN I/O and Opus Magnum in terms of difficulty. The premise allows us to go into the field of relatively known algorithms and problems. In particular, it is a question of introducing and making the player discover algorithmic theory by themselves. Thus, ordereing problems and data structures (sequential access, priority queue, spaghetti stack, LIFO) will be explored. Despite the scary names, the title makes sure that those concepts are implied and distilled through tangible and specific puzzles. This is where it is at its best: it's much easier to understand how we to retrieve a DVD box from a pile than explaining the theory behind LIFO. On the other hand, the game loses a bit of its charm in the bonus campaign levels, which are a pile of problems that only aim to make our EXA lines explode. But the initial diversity is more than enough to make up for this final frustration. A warm mention to the lore-building, which, without being exceptional, does its job decently and fosters a certain empathy with the characters and a sense of reward by "seeing" the effect of our programs in the world. Another very good puzzle game.