Silicon Zeroes feels like a boss fight in my despair at puzzles. For a few people, this is actually a very, very good thing.
Silicon Zeroes takes a lot of pages from the Zachtronics approach to puzzle games. You're given an array of tools, a situation, and usually a state you need to finish in. It's up to you to combine your tools in ways to create your solution. In the case of Silicon Zeroes, the game is about hardware: you start with basic tools to add with, play with memory a little, connect pieces together to build counters, working your way up the hardware food chain to increasingly complex electronics.
Silicon Zeroes takes a lot of pages from the Zachtronics approach to puzzle games. You're given an array of tools, a situation, and usually a state you need to finish in. It's up to you to combine your tools in ways to create your solution. In the case of Silicon Zeroes, the game is about hardware: you start with basic tools to add with, play with memory a little, connect pieces together to build counters, working your way up the hardware food chain to increasingly complex electronics.
These kind of puzzle games I find completely maddening. The sandbox nature really doesn't lend itself well to clues or a "here's a place to start" sort of leader - I'm dumped right in to an impossible looking puzzle and just have to mash it out until I can get it.
help me
Now, for those who liked SpaceChem and friends, this is probably a very good sign for you - Silicon Zeroes does not let up on introducing new twists, and quickly enough you'll be importing previous devices into future puzzles, iterating on your creations. That element of carry-forward is very satisfying, and it's fun to see how my previous inventions are important for the next problem.
I will say Silicon Zeroes maybe could have explained itself a little bit more than it does, though, when introducing concepts like memory and instructions. I get some of it is partially that we're flavored around a start-up and learning/adjusting to it as we go, but I'm spending a bit too much time figuring out what something even is before I can get to the part where I try and solve the problem.
I'm not 100% sure about the price tag, but puzzle fans looking for something in the Zachtronics style might find their itch scratched here.
I enjoyed it. Silicon Zeroes is a good game.