EXAPUNKS |OT| |> Read Zines |> Write Viruses |> Hack Everything

Durante · Aug 9, 2018

EXAPUNKS is the latest in Zachtronics' series of absolutely amazing puzzle games.

If you are not familiar with them, the common theme is that you build something -- it could be an electronics gadget, or a chemical reaction, or a program -- to accomplish a given task.

A huge part of what makes these games so addictive to aficionados is the competitive aspect.
Each solution you create has several nonfunctional aspects which determine its quality -- e.g. in the case of EXAPUNKS, one of them is Cycles (speed) -- and you get to compare your solution against a histogram of all of them, as well as your friends.
Optimizing your solutions can become highly addictive.

From what I have played so far, EXAPUNKS also steps up the production values compared to previous Zachtronics games, with e.g. voice acting. It's basically AAA.

Oh, and while the setting and world-building is surprisingly good in all Zachtronics games, especially considering the genre and focus, I feel like EXAPUNKS might be their best yet. Or maybe I'm totally into cyberpunk and 90s hacker counterculture.

Let's get this started!

Note that the game is in early access, but this is completely different from the early access you might have in mind. The game is complete, and polished, but Zachtronics always has a few months of EA to react to feedback and tweak the games.

Spectrum · Aug 9, 2018

I can't wait to get home and dig into this game.

Durante · Aug 9, 2018

Also, everyone playing this, friend me on Steam!

Durante · Aug 9, 2018

It seems like the server-side data for the histograms just got refreshed, and there are already some things I'll have to think hard about to match.

But this one is holding up for now: ;)

Tim · Aug 9, 2018

Man that first mission is real good. Always love Zach's fucked up vision of the future.

Bosh · Aug 9, 2018

Alright, asking the idiot question. Everything needed to solve a puzzle is in the game ? No coding experience required

Tim · Aug 9, 2018

Bosh said:
Alright, asking the idiot question. Everything needed to solve a puzzle is in the game ? No coding experience required

Yes. There's a PDF that explains everything. Print it out, alt-tab, or put it on another device and you'll be good to go.

Bosh · Aug 9, 2018

Tim said:
Yes. There's a PDF that explains everything. Print it out, alt-tab, or put it on another device and you'll be good to go.

Thank you for confirmation!

Spectrum · Aug 9, 2018

Durante said:
It seems like the server-side data for the histograms just got refreshed, and there are already some things I'll have to think hard about to match.

But this one is holding up for now: ;)

I managed to get that one down to ~300 using the T register, but I guess I'm still missing some tricks...

Bosh said:
Alright, asking the idiot question. Everything needed to solve a puzzle is in the game ? No coding experience required

There is a manual with a tutorial that should walk you through the basics and explain the more advanced stuff. I would say it's a bit more intuitive than Zachtronic's past programming games and I've seen people with no programming experience get relatively far in those. If you like problem solving, I think you would do okay if you are willing to put some effort into learning the rules.

Bosh · Aug 9, 2018

Spectrum said:
I managed to get that one down to ~300 using the T register, but I guess I'm still missing some tricks...

There is a manual with a tutorial that should walk you through the basics and explain the more advanced stuff. I would say it's a bit more intuitive than Zachtronic's past programming games and I've seen people with no programming experience get relatively far in those. If you like problem solving, I think you would do okay if you are willing to put some effort into learning the rules.

Perfect, definitely going to check this out tonight . Thanks for the response!

More_Badass · Aug 9, 2018

Here's where everyone is

TIS and Shenzhen were like brick walls for me, but this must easier to grasp. Maybe it's the visual representation and contextual wrapping compared to those

This feels like the more accessible, more story-driven successor to those in the same way that Opus Magnum and Infinifactory were for SpaceChem

Aeana · Aug 9, 2018

I love it, as always. I got the physical edition, and I really like the books.
My usual friends aren't playing yet, so I'm just competing with myself. I need more friendly competition. Right now I'm just enjoying the thought of them eventually coming along and going "how did she do that? ahhh" which is driving me to find even better solutions. I just did the highway sign one, and I got 218/15/1 but I feel like I can definitely get the cycle count on that down, so I guess I'll be obsessing over this for a while.

Durante · Aug 10, 2018

Aeana said:
I love it, as always. I got the physical edition, and I really like the books.
My usual friends aren't playing yet, so I'm just competing with myself. I need more friendly competition. Right now I'm just enjoying the thought of them eventually coming along and going "how did she do that? ahhh" which is driving me to find even better solutions. I just did the highway sign one, and I got 218/15/1 but I feel like I can definitely get the cycle count on that down, so I guess I'll be obsessing over this for a while.

I'm pretty happy with my solution for that one. The first level in which I used some of the more obscure features.

(Note: these individual metrics aren't from the same solution)

Mugen · Aug 10, 2018

My package from Zachtronics got caught in customs so that's an extra ~$15 to pay and delayed delivery. :(

d00d3n · Aug 10, 2018

Wouldn't it have been nice if SWIZ worked on keywords?

Durante · Aug 10, 2018

Mugen said:
My package from Zachtronics got caught in customs so that's an extra ~$15 to pay and delayed delivery. :(

That sucks. At least it's not one of those LEs where they ship the key in the physical box!

AvernOffset · Aug 10, 2018

I played through the highway sign hack last night, and I'm really enjoying it so far. It definitely feels like there's a lot of interesting design space in this one. Also, I'm kind of shocked at how much I'm into the story and aesthetic. I've never gotten much out of the stories in Zachtronics games before, but I think they've improved a lot with this one. The characters feel relatable, some of the jokes have landed really well, and I love the brief conversations with the AI before/after hacks. The only thing that has bugged me so far is that if you try to send two EXAs across a link simultaneously, it seems like the one lower on your list of EXAs gets priority? Not sure if I was doing something wrong, but that felt backwards to me.

Eden · Aug 10, 2018

Probably won't be starting this until after the weekend but printed the zine out at work since it can do booklets and it looks great.

KKRT · Aug 10, 2018

Anyone knows how to set custom resolution in windowed mode?

TeenageFBI · Aug 10, 2018

I'm busy with a few other games right now so i can't play for long but I received my zine/package from Zachtronics. I wish more companies made fun physical stuff like this (instead of the bloated cat helmets that we usually see).

Played for a few minutes. I love the music, as usual. Is it the same music guy for every Zachtronics game?

Spectrum · Aug 10, 2018

Durante said:
I'm pretty happy with my solution for that one. The first level in which I used some of the more obscure features.

(Note: these individual metrics aren't from the same solution)

I had to use a very messy solution to get the cycles down on that one. It also took me a while to notice we now have division/modulo operations.

Durante · Aug 10, 2018

AvernOffset said:
I played through the highway sign hack last night, and I'm really enjoying it so far. It definitely feels like there's a lot of interesting design space in this one. Also, I'm kind of shocked at how much I'm into the story and aesthetic. I've never gotten much out of the stories in Zachtronics games before, but I think they've improved a lot with this one. The characters feel relatable, some of the jokes have landed really well, and I love the brief conversations with the AI before/after hacks. The only thing that has bugged me so far is that if you try to send two EXAs across a link simultaneously, it seems like the one lower on your list of EXAs gets priority? Not sure if I was doing something wrong, but that felt backwards to me.

Yeah, I think if you want to enforce a priority you just shouldn't try to use the link in the same cycle. (Same for hardware register reading/writing. And global comm for that matter)

Spectrum said:
I had to use a very messy solution to get the cycles down on that one. It also took me a while to notice we now have division/modulo operations.

My 88 cycle solution is quite elegant, just 20 instructions.
I got it down to 86 cycles now with your prompting, but that solution isn't nearly as elegant ;)

Aeana · Aug 10, 2018

I get home from work, and Gotchaye has beaten every single one of my scores. He even has 165 cycles on tutorial 4. I guess all progress is halted until I catch up.

Durante · Aug 10, 2018

Aeana said:
I get home from work, and Gotchaye has beaten every single one of my scores. He even has 165 cycles on tutorial 4. I guess all progress is halted until I catch up.

Yeah, I also saw that an hour or so ago. Gave me some good motivation.

Also, it's 3:18 here. TIS-100 dejavu

Spectrum · Aug 10, 2018

Durante said:
Yeah, I think if you want to enforce a priority you just shouldn't try to use the link in the same cycle. (Same for hardware register reading/writing. And global comm for that matter)

My 88 cycle solution is quite elegant, just 20 instructions.
I got it down to 86 cycles now with your prompting, but that solution isn't nearly as elegant ;)

I managed to get it down to 85 cycles. I still haven't found an elegant sub-100 cycles solution, though.

Deleted member 25888 · Aug 10, 2018

How does he keep making games this fast? Shenzhen was my crack.

Damn. Might have to jump on this.

Dinjoralo · Aug 10, 2018

I've gotten to the point where you get the second zine, and I'm gonna hold off on going further 'til I get my physical zines in the mail.

I need the solitaire music... It's so good and chill.

Durante · Aug 10, 2018

I think I could eke out a few more cycles, but the current count is aesthetically appealing ;)

Dreenk · Aug 10, 2018

I feel like I'm a bit slower on the uptake with this game than any of the previous ones, no particular reason why though. Loving it so far nonetheless - the aesthetic and music are A++;

Hidden content

^Steam profile if anyone wants more leaderboard fodder.

Tim · Aug 10, 2018

We also have a ZachEra group: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/zachera

Antialias · Aug 10, 2018

Stiff competition in my friends list as usual

Deleted member 2620 · Aug 11, 2018

This looks like the coolest Zachtronics game thematically. I have too much stuff I'm juggling right now to buy this early access but I can't wait for release.

Nex · Aug 11, 2018

Kinda sucks that this got released on the same weekend as MHW, but I've been finding time to play it and I already love it. It feels like it's gonna get stupidly intricate as it goes on. I'm also intrigued by the story. I also enjoyed the story in Opus Magnum so I expect to like this too.

Spoit · Aug 11, 2018

I need a guide of those "one weird trick" things. Even more than than the other games, I feel like I'm throwing hundreds of cycles (and lines) away just doing the naive solution. Especially for all the loop operators, where I'm really missing the ability to just toss in an extra line of code for the 2nd condition before jumping somewhere.

Counters are also killing me

spam musubi · Aug 11, 2018

I'm a bit confused about how to use the M register and two EXAs to read from one file and write to the other in a loop. I either end up with the target file having every other item from the source file, or the first or second EXA get blocked for some reason. Can someone show me a working example of what code is needed in each EXA to, for example, take one file (let's say 200), then dump it to the other?

EXA 1:

Code:

grab 200
mark loop
copy f m
test eof
fjmp loop
copy m -1
wipe
halt

EXA 2:

Code:

make
mark loop
copy m f
test m = -1
fjmp loop
drop
halt

, or variants of it, don't seem to work.

Tim · Aug 11, 2018

nynt9 said:
I'm a bit confused about how to use the M register and two EXAs to read from one file and write to the other in a loop. I either end up with the target file having every other item from the source file, or the first or second EXA get blocked for some reason. Can someone show me a working example of what code is needed in each EXA to, for example, take one file (let's say 200), then dump it to the other?

EXA 1:

Code:

grab 200 mark loop copy f m test eof fjmp loop copy m -1 wipe halt

EXA 2:

Code:

make mark loop copy m f test m = -1 fjmp loop drop halt

, or variants of it, don't seem to work.

"Test MRD" checks to see if there's a variable in M without triggering it.

spam musubi · Aug 11, 2018

Tim said:
"Test MRD" checks to see if there's a variable in M without triggering it.

Can you show me an example of how it's supposed to work?

Tim · Aug 11, 2018

nynt9 said:
Can you show me an example of how it's supposed to work?

Sure:

Code:

grab 200
mark loop
copy f m
test eof
fjmp loop
wipe
halt

Code:

make
mark loop
copy m f
noop
noop
test mrd
tjmp loop
drop
halt

That might not sync up 1:1 so you might need to tweak it a bit, but should give you an idea.

e: to clarify, mrd tests to see if any eva is broadcasting a variable to M, so you need to have the broadcast started *before* your second eva checks or it will think the loop is done. Using "noop" waits a cycle which might be helpful.

Spectrum · Aug 11, 2018

nynt9 said:
I'm a bit confused about how to use the M register and two EXAs to read from one file and write to the other in a loop. I either end up with the target file having every other item from the source file, or the first or second EXA get blocked for some reason. Can someone show me a working example of what code is needed in each EXA to, for example, take one file (let's say 200), then dump it to the other?

EXA 1:

Code:

grab 200 mark loop copy f m test eof fjmp loop copy m -1 wipe halt

EXA 2:

Code:

make mark loop copy m f test m = -1 fjmp loop drop halt

, or variants of it, don't seem to work.

After you write to the M register it can only be read once by another EXA, so you would need to store the value before doing the comparison. So for your EXA2

Code:

make
mark loop
copy m x
copy x f
test x = -1
fjmp loop
drop
halt

That code will write an extra -1 at the end of the file, though. It can be fixed with some extra labels and jumps, but maybe you want to figure out that yourself.

KKRT · Aug 11, 2018

UNKNOWN NETWORK 1 was so much fun :)
This game needs more control over execution speed, like Shenzhen I/O had, also would be nice to have gif integration like Opus Magnum, maybe on release :)

----

Spoit said:
I need a guide of those "one weird trick" things. Even more than than the other games, I feel like I'm throwing hundreds of cycles (and lines) away just doing the naive solution. Especially for all the loop operators, where I'm really missing the ability to just toss in an extra line of code for the 2nd condition before jumping somewhere.

Counters are also killing me

I'm in the same camp. TEST replacing T value annoys me to no end.

Durante · Aug 11, 2018

I'm really missing computed jump targets.

Anyway, in the spirit of the game I wrote a program to help me find the optimal solution for tutorial 4:

Code:

range = 1..99

min_cycles = 10000
solution = []

0.upto 50 do |la|
    0.upto 50 do |lb|
        0.upto 50 do |lc|
            cur = [la, lb, lc]
            code_size = la + lb + lc
            cur.each { |ll| code_size += 4 if ll > 0 }
            next if code_size > 38

            max_cycles = 0
            range.each do |val|
                cycles = 0
                cur.each do |ll|
                    if ll > 0
                        while val > ll
                            val -= ll
                            cycles += ll + 3
                        end
                        cycles += 2
                    end
                end
                cycles += val * 3
                max_cycles = cycles if cycles > max_cycles
            end
            if max_cycles <= min_cycles
                min_cycles = max_cycles
                solution = [la, lb, lc]
            end
        end
    end
end

puts min_cycles
p solution

The result is better than my previous best, but still 6 cycles off of Gotchaye's. His surrounding framework/idea must be slightly more efficient.

Dinjoralo · Aug 11, 2018

I just realized there's a DIVI instruction. I thought this would be like assembly where you don't get to divide numbers since you need registers for the remainder and quotient. I used swizzle for hacking your heart.

Right now, I'm trying to figure out how you could do the bank in half the steps... I understand the concept, but I have no idea how you could do it without tripping the alarms.

Bastos · Aug 11, 2018

Antialias said:
Stiff competition in my friends list as usual

I wish my friends played Zachtronics stuff

Durante · Aug 11, 2018

I just reached the part where you get the second zine. These really help the pacing, it's a good time to relax and give it a read.

d00d3n · Aug 11, 2018

Durante said:
I think I could eke out a few more cycles, but the current count is aesthetically appealing ;)

I am wrecking my brain trying to optimize this one. I can see the path to a 135-ish score by shaving the last cycle off writing to the output file (have not managed to sync this properly), but 100 is insane.

Bastos · Aug 11, 2018

Couldn't resist and bought the physical zines.

Raticus79 · Aug 11, 2018

All right, I'm in.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/Raticus79

Sasha Nein · Aug 11, 2018

KKRT said:
UNKNOWN NETWORK 1 was so much fun :)
This game needs more control over execution speed, like Shenzhen I/O had, also would be nice to have gif integration like Opus Magnum, maybe on release :)

----

I'm in the same camp. TEST replacing T value annoys me to no end.

Well this is much more efficient than my solution. I made 8 EXAs at the start and hard-coded them to their destinations :) Brute-force is best!

Although saying that, I'm currently on the TEC Redshift password one... maybe brute-forcing isn't the way to go.

None of my Steam friends have this game so feel free to add me (link in my profile) if you'd like to share your (no doubt more efficient) stats!

Durante · Aug 11, 2018

Finished the second 'zine. It's even better than the first.

... I spent too much time

unrolling loops without macros!

Gotchaye · Aug 11, 2018

Dinjoralo said:
I just realized there's a DIVI instruction. I thought this would be like assembly where you don't get to divide numbers since you need registers for the remainder and quotient. I used swizzle for hacking your heart.

...I felt so smart for coming up with a division workaround for multiples of 10 using SWIZ. This is going to make some things easier.

Durante said:
The result is better than my previous best, but still 6 cycles off of Gotchaye's. His surrounding framework/idea must be slightly more efficient.

I got down close to you and cyan in the first place using a series of different-length loops. But my current best solution uses a killbot (I'm happy to share if anyone wants but I don't want to spoil people).

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