Surely a bit less difficult than Robot Odyssey, but immensely enjoyable nonetheless. I finally forced myself to uninstall it after spending waaaay too much time hyperoptimizing my solutions against the online leaderboard... it was rather addicting. :)
Incidentally, I didn't realize that he was the creator of Infiniminer. For those unfamiliar with the game, it is what inspired Notch to create Minecraft.
Oh man, Codex of Alchemical Engineering is a game that brings back very fond memories. In fact, he also made KOHCTPYKTOP: Engineer of the People http://www.zachtronics.com/play-kohctpyktop/ another game that I used to love.
I had a discussion with the creator about beating the last level. I had a solution that solved 95% of it, but I have no idea if it was close to working. Zachary confessed he hadn't beaten it either, but he did prove that it was possible.
On another note, the histograms you get after beating a level are the best high score screen implementation I have ever seen. I gush over them whenever I get the chance.
> I actually quit playing SpaceChem because the difficulty of the puzzles progressed to the point where I felt I should be getting paid to solve them.
I have (or had, I guess) the same sort of response to the score screens at the end of a Firefight game in Halo ODST. It would show you charts and tables for your progress through waves, your weapon usage and kills per enemy, a graph of your deaths, etc. Every game should provide stats like that.
SpaceChem is one of my most-used examples for "this is what happens when you take a game mechanic and optimize it to infinity". Amazing depth and complexity and a really long play-through that stays interesting. And then that leaderboard pops up and makes mockery of your past hour of work, egging you on to beat the curve somewhere. I love it.
http://www.spacechemthegame.com/
Surely a bit less difficult than Robot Odyssey, but immensely enjoyable nonetheless. I finally forced myself to uninstall it after spending waaaay too much time hyperoptimizing my solutions against the online leaderboard... it was rather addicting. :)