Zachtronics designers returned with a new puzzle set in the 1980s Tokyo

Lubricating your brain with some pure Omega-3 oils, a new puzzle game from Opus Magnum and Eliza manufacturers have been announced. Kaizen: A factory story will be a “automation game open from the original Zachtronics group, set in the 1980s, Japan” in which you will build a toy robot, computer, TV and … Katsu Curry? Yes, why not. Although the studio behind this engineer is new technically, the main designers – Zach Barth and Matthew Seiji Burns – who have brought you Exapunks, TIS -100 and Shenzhen I/O. This, my friends, is a very good news.

“This is not a Zachtronics game,” Barth told PC Gamer in an interview after the game’s notice. “This is a coincidential game, it is a completely legal game studio.”

The coincidence has released a game – adding Astra, a person who puzzles in mathematics and racing. But this seems to be a more intentional heir for the automation crown. All signs of the previous programs of the designers seemed intact. You play like a fish out of the water (in this case is a Japanese -American, who finds yourself working in a factory on the outskirts of Tokyo), you will modify by machines to offer effective (or ineffective) solutions and you will export your assembly lines. It has Solitaire, but Solitaire is also Pachinko. It is called “Pachi-Sol”.

It has a new interesting feature, though. You will be able to rub back to your construction process in a rewinding way and edit it from any specific point that you have caused trouble. It sounds like it will be handy in larger projects.

Many writers at RPS have been fans of these games over the years. I fainted on Shenzhen I/O, but saw that you migrated to China to make a circuit board. Sin of insomnia (in a good way) while playing Eliza thoughtful image novels. And when Alchemy Dabbler Opus Magnum released, it left Matt, Graham and myself competing to make great machines (sadly, the strong GIFs in this article were no longer working). “I really like to make my stupid little games,” Zach Barth said after releasing that game. That game Not important? Sorry, Opus Magnum is still one of our best puzzle games to this day.

A few years later, Zachtronics will close, but not before releasing its last game, the last Call BBS. It seems that the Swan Song is really just a big white duck, now Barth and Burns have returned to a coincidence.

We have been in the habit of calling these puzzle games “Zachlike” since Alice O’Connor (RPS in Hoa Binh) set this term, although Barth, according to the person this genre is named, desires it is different. “I hate to say like Zach,” he told PC Gamer. “If anyone has any suggestions for another thing, can we call them?” Hmmm … I don’t know. On the one hand, you have released a whole book with Zach like the title, partly sealing this term with approval. After that, again, it was the fact that we often warned against Auteism indoors on the RPS tree. What to do, what to do.

Let us remove these thoughts until Kaizen: A factory story appears. One day of release has not been announced. I will set up some complex electrical alarms to turn off when we know more.