Zachtronics

Zachtronics was a small studio from the United States that developed video games. It was founded in 2011 by Zach Barth, who also gave the studio its name. Almost all of the games share the same basic idea: the player is given a task and must build a machine themselves to accomplish it. This can be a factory, a circuit made of electronic components, or a small program made of individual instructions. Instead of defeating enemies, you solve technical problems — in the way an engineer would. In 2022, the studio released its last game and ceased development.

Why games about engineering work became a genre of their own

Most puzzle games have a single correct solution. Zachtronics games are different: there are almost always many paths to the goal. The game only checks whether the machine you built fulfills the task. How elegantly, quickly, or economically it does so is left up to the player. Afterward, a statistic shows how your own solution compares to those of all other players.

It is exactly this comparison that makes up the appeal. You solve a task, then see that half of all players needed fewer components — and start over. This mix of freedom and competition was new. It gave rise to the term “Zach-like,” which fans today use to describe games with a similar structure.

For the tech industry, the games are interesting for a second reason. They convey ways of thinking that matter in the profession: breaking down a problem, testing a solution, then improving it. Some computer science teachers therefore use the games in their lessons. Zach Barth even released a version of one game specifically for schools.

From component to working machine

The process is the same in most titles. First, a task describes what the end result should be — for example, a specific molecule or a specific sequence of numbers. Then you get an empty workspace and a limited supply of components. You put these parts together, press start, and watch the machine run. If it doesn’t work, you change something and start again.

The components differ greatly from game to game. In “SpaceChem,” they are conveyor belts and grabber arms that combine atoms into molecules. In “Opus Magnum,” you work with the mechanical arms of an alchemical workshop. In “TIS-100” and “Shenzhen I/O,” by contrast, you write actual program code in a simplified machine language — that is, a language made up of very simple individual instructions.

An often underestimated point: the games explain very little on their own. “Shenzhen I/O” comes with a manual of more than 30 pages that you actually have to read. This is intentional. In real engineering work as well, tasks often begin with understanding a datasheet.

Where the games show up today

The best-known titles are “SpaceChem,” “Infinifactory,” “TIS-100,” “Shenzhen I/O,” “Opus Magnum,” and “Exapunks.” They run on ordinary computers and are available through platforms such as Steam. After the studio closed, the games were released in bundled collections, in some cases together with the source code.

In the tech press, the name usually comes up in two contexts. First, when it comes to playful learning of programming — Zachtronics is regarded there as a benchmark. Second, when new games appear that follow the same principle. “Factorio” or “Baba Is You” are frequently mentioned in this context, even though they come from other studios.

One misunderstanding should be avoided: Zachtronics has nothing to do with artificial intelligence. The games only come up in the AI context because researchers sometimes use them as test tasks. A program is meant to build a functioning machine on its own — a task at which current systems still clearly fail.