Recent reviews by Bunny Bakes

Amazing game as is (May 3rd, 2024). Variable difficulty to preference. Friendly fire incidents make me laugh rather than rage. Everything is mostly seamless from gameplay to mechanics as the bug fixes have been pushed out since launch.

HOWEVER, The recent announcement that this game will require an external-to-Steam account to be playable come June 2024 is a dealbreaker, especially when told previously it was not required, (and as my 130+ hours of gameplay demonstrate, was never required). As 130+ hours is far beyond Steam's 2 hour refund grace period, there aren't many ways to express my displeasure. Due to this I discourage anyone from getting the game. And to those that do or, like me, already did, I encourage you to disable crossplay.

Fun game. This took me 4-5 hours to complete and 6.5ish hours total to 100%. Since I bought it on sale, It seemed like a reasonable purchase to be a horror monster. 9/10, Would eviscerate the research facility again.

TIS-100 is a can be a challenging puzzle game, even for those that have some programming experience. I think this game (while not a perfect model for any esiting assembly language) is a beautiful way to get into the mindset that makes programming easier (to plan and to visualize). The limitations of the instruction set used for solving each program puzzle can be frustrating, but it's a tantalizing frustration (Ex: I know how to solve this problem in C; how can I adapt what I know there into the patterns for doing things here?). I found the game highly rewarding with the open-endedness of the puzzles.

My first solutions to each of the puzzle tended to be jury-rigged together. They work, but I can make it better. I can try to make it take fewer cycles (faster) to finish testing the instructions. I can consolidate the code so it uses fewer of the nodes MOV-ing data back and forth. I can work towards a solution that needs fewer lines of code to have a solution. Each of these “execution nodes” holds no more than 15 lines of instructions. There were many times I could’ve solved a problem easier if I had 16 lines; it forced me to think at the problem from a different perspective. I would not describe this as an easy puzzle game. It is simple, but not easy.

This game required from me:

• Logical A→B→C thought progressions
  
• Understanding how to modularize a problem into separable steps that can be tested individually
  
• Patience and diligence to deal with my own mistakes (a program will only do as instructed and I caused it to not work)
  
• Creativity with instructions that behaved unlike stuff I was familiar with

Overall, my playtime took under 35 hours to get a working solution to each of the 47 puzzles. Interspaced in that were 40ish hours for trying to improve some of my solutions. Recently this year, I’ve taken a personal challenge at getting “UNCONDITIONAL” (like the namesake achievement) solutions to all the puzzles. I’ve already done so the first 25 puzzles (nightmare difficulty for the SEQUENCE SORTER puzzle).

If you get this game, may you come to learn the beauty of JRO and the profane magic of JRO ANY.