
That kind of challenge was largely one of execution, however.

Developers could not get a lot of content into a game as memory was limited. “Nintendo hard”, which was a consequence of memory limitations. Furthermore, back in the days of the Nintendo Entertainment System, games were normally punishingly difficult, i.e.
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In comparison, to advance in a skill-based platforming game - think of Super Mario games - you need to learn how to control your avatar better. Instead, your avatar becomes more powerful. To illustrate this, think of the vast majority of games that offer “RPG elements”, where the stats that define your character grow. Instead, they are a sedative grind, rewarding you for the time spent doing mundane tasks instead of pushing your skill as a player.

The main reason I am put off by most video games is that they do not offer much of a challenge. Yet, when Zach Barth mentioned that less than two percent of players were able to finish the story mode of SpaceChem, I was intrigued. What is not true for all of them is that they are punishingly difficult. That is true for all games Zachtronics has released. He pointed out that puzzles in Zachtronics games have multiple solutions, which may also have to take tradeoffs into account, which is similar to engineering problems. He talked about the design philosophy behind their games and briefly covered aspects where he thought SpaceChem went wrong. A few months ago, though, I came across a presentation by Zach Barth, the mastermind behind SpaceChem and the subsequent games released by Zachtronics.

It did not immediately grab my attention, so it spent years unplayed in my Steam library. I bought SpaceChem years ago, but only launched it once.
