Every element of this is so clearly crafted with ingenious care and charm: the “dumped on an old desktop” opening that left me to poke around and find the games on the BBS, the diegetic hardware noises lightly grinding and humming away as I interact with the desktop, the quiet drama and characterization of each minigame’s creator spooled out in the notes app as I advance through their respective levels, the subtle autobiographic reflection of Zachtronics themselves seen in the notes, the impeccable visual design of everything. The presentation of all of it adds up to something incredible, even if the puzzles themselves were just okay.

And then the puzzle minigames are a joy to play. Each one is inventively high-concept and poses its own distinct challenge, usually around some sort of programming concept. I’ve finished half of the minigames and look forward to chipping away at the remaining puzzles in the other games as I’m able. Their diversity is a pleasure to bounce between when one has me stumped, and when I’m totally frazzled there’s always the oddly tactile satisfaction of the Steed Force model building app.

Chip Wizard in particular blew my mind. It’s essentially a streamlined CAD program for low-level IC design that strips away the inhibitory math of an upper-level engineering course to reveal the more broadly approachable design puzzles contained within. At the same time, it does a way better job of casually but clearly showing functional IC design concepts (like the difference between NPN and PNP transistors) than a semester or two of most related college courses.