Perhaps it's just due to where I am in my coding career, or perhaps it says more about the kinds of puzzles SHENZHEN I/O throws at you, but this is the first Zachtronics game I haven't dropped after a few hours.

As the problems got harder I started to supress the natural programmer's instinct to prematurely optimise all my code, a path which often ended with wrestling multiple annoying edge cases thanks to the limited instruction set, and instead tried brute forcing the logic by slapping double the chips onto the board. Pleasingly, the game also pushed back on this approach, introducing a meta-layer of trying to get all the wiring to fit next to each other in a limited space, whilst also requiring additional redundant subroutines unconditionally passing data around so that no process gets blocked. Zachtronics games always load on constraints so that problems are non-trivial and often a little fiddly, but only in SHENZHEN I/O have I really enjoyed rubbing up against the limits and finding my own style of working within them without feeling too gross about the compromises. Maybe I can take what I've learnt and beat some of their other games.

Although, maybe it's not worth beating their games. SHENZHEN's ending snuck up on me at what felt like the crescendo of the game's understandably minimal plot. You're left with a false choice that you'd never take in real life, but accepting it is the only way to access the bonus campaign. Maybe I'll leave my principles behind and see what those extra levels are like in a few weeks when I hit a lull in my day job.

Great solitaire entry. Made me think I'd finally 'got' solitaire, but a few rounds of klondike righted that idea.