Human Resource Machine

This is a fun game, but it gives little to no instructions and no helpful hints. So it's a bit frustrating. It's not the best game for learning coding, it's more like a brain teaser game instead.

I've said it all..weird, strange, hell of a fun time. That's what games are for!

I was using this as a way to help kids learn code. It is really fun and the people say all sorts of funny things. There are some videos thoughout that help create a storyline. However the second to last video uses God's name as a swear word. Very dissapointing as everything up until then was clean.

Super compelling. The game is beautifully quirky, and it very disarmingly gets you comfortable with the interface before gradually increasing the difficulty. It's nice that each stage builds on the last, and gameplay becomes more and more challenging as you progress. Optional levels have even tougher puzzles which is cool. As a comp sci major, I definitely enjoyed the game. Suprisingly, my 7 year old son has also enjoyed playing through the first dozen levels with light coaching. I look forward to seeing how far he can get. PRO TIP: It's currently half price on iOS vs. Mac. I bought it for Mac before noticing the iOS version. It's certainly beautiful on a Macbook, but in case you want it in a more portable form factor, you may want to save some cash by grabbing the iOS version.

I love coding in MUSH and I love playing this game! I had a ton of fun getting through the levels and optimizing each one! I love constructive puzzle solving. It reminds me a little of how I code on a MUSH: I totally got out my graph paper pad and wrote down the flow before trying to build and run it. Sometimes during my free time, I would doodle program ideas on graph paper to run later. Several of the solutions required me to think outside of the box, and there’s not always the ONE optimal answer. On many of the levels I was able to shorten the length or the time even further. I appreciated that when the program doesn’t work, the game supplies numbers that will intentionally illustrate how the system breaks—which is helpful :p Totally worth the money, even though I totally could have used more game! (Definitely buying the sequel!)

I can’t say enough good things about this game. It is simple enough at the beginning to draw you in and function as it’s own tutorial. However, it does not stay simple for long, and draws you into wonderful math/programming puzzles. At $10, it’s a great deal.

Excellent puzzle game, regardless of whether you are a programmer or enjoy coding. While the gameplay is similar to other coding-inspired games, there are certainly tasks in the game that you cannot do easily with the available instructions for that level. This forces your mind to find unique ways to solve otherwise easy problems (such as multiplying a number by 40 when you can only use the number’s squares). I also like that your ‘code’ must be generalizable; in the game, you can often see the input for the next round, but you can’t win a level by writing a sequence that works only with those specific values. While I wouldn’t say any of the levels are very difficult to solve, getting your program to reach the target (read: minimum) number of lines or iterations can often take much longer than solving the level. The only reason I’m giving four stars instead of five is not the gameplay, but the length of gameplay. If the game had more levels, or the price was ~$5 instead of $10 for the current number of levels, it would get five stars. Here’s hoping the developers add another set of levels soon!

Really enjoyed this game. Great teaching tool for the kids. Although I agree with the post that said it was a little short — I have to say it still took me about >10 hours of game time (spread out over weeks) to solve all levels with the right optimized scores — so I feel I got my money’s worth. I was just sorry to see the game end. Also to the other comment: I think the lack of “subroutines” is one of the great attractions of this raw assembly-style puzzle coding. You are forced to really think through the costs of any extra steps. The resulting code isn’t particularly readable but that's part of the reason it’s a nice brain puzzle (keeping track of those threads can be a brain work out!). Also there is something really aesthetically satisfying with being able to build sort routines and find prime numbers with stripped down programs.

Not really worth the cost, IMHO. Liltte useful “instructions” / “hints” …

This is a fun little programming game; my only complaint is that it’s too short. It would have been real nice to have introduced subroutines; in their absence, what this game is really teaching is Terrible Spaghetti Coding.