Summary
Best known for their complex puzzle games, some of which include some form of engineering,Zachtronicsis an old and trusted brand that has been consistently putting out games on Steam since 2011 with the release ofSpaceChem.
RELATED:Puzzle Games You Have To Be A Genius To Complete
Zachtronics games are perfect for players who love to think and deliberate over clever, challenging puzzles, and the more recently released Zachtronics games tend to feature clean and well-polished visuals that make them somewhat more accessible. Among their many titles, Zachtronics has also released several unique versions of computer solitaire, which is included here underThe Zachtronics Solitaire Collection, which is also available on Steam.
While Zachtronics did get their start with the 2009 game,Infiniminer, this list is exclusively concerned with readily available Zachtronics games published on Steam.
12Mobius Front ‘83 - An Advance Wars-Style Tactics Game
Steam User Rating: 75%
This turn-based tactics war game was released in 2020 and, along with other games such asIronclad TacticsandEliza, sticks out like a sore thumb amid Zachtronics’ other games. The strategy and tactics inMobius Front ‘83are heavily focused on choke points, facilitated by the fact that only infantry can move through forests, allowing players to funnel enemy tanks and APCs through kill zones.
Infantry inMobius Frontis very slow, forcing players to play around them and focus on vehicular combat. AlthoughMobius Front’saccessible gameplay is aimed at fans of strategy and tactics games, fans of other Zachtronics games may find some fun in the puzzle-like missions supported by the game’s turn-based nature.
This deck-building game was released back in 2013, long before games likeSlay The Spirepopularized computer card games and deck-building with its roguelite structure.Ironclad Tacticsis very different from modern deck-building games, with an extremely unique and fluid combat system that won’t be for everyone.
Ironclad Tacticsis set in an alternate version of the American Civil War, featuring steam-powered robots that are reminiscent of more recent mech games likeIron Harvest. The game’s story is told through graphic novel cutscenes to good effect, and althoughIronclad Tacticsis a turn-based game, it features a turn clock that pushes the turn of play and keeps things fast-paced. However, this clock also adds a great deal of chaos, and the lack of a pause option forces players to make decisions on the fly.
10Eliza - An Emotional Visual Novel About AI
Steam User Rating: 92%
This complete left-turn for Zachtronics is avisual novel gamethat’s bereft of the studio’s usual combination of automation, programming, and puzzles.Elizafeatures a great art style, a well-written script, and talented voice work that combine to make a well-rounded andemotional narrative experience.
Elizais aimed at a completely different demographic than most other Zachtronics games, but if anything,Elizashows just how capable and flexible Zachtronics is as a developer. The game’s story is centered around an AI-driven therapy service, so the narrative can get quite heavy at times, but for those who don’t mind an emotional experience,Elizais a wonderfully strange diversion in Zachtronics’ history.
9MOLEK-SYNTEZ - A Minimalist Game About Chemistry
Like its peers,MOLEK-SYNTEZisa programming puzzle gamethat tasks players with creating drugs out of abstracted bonds, atoms, and molecules. The game’s simple, abstractblack-and-white visualsare minimal and unimpressive, but they do a good job of not distracting the player from the game’s strong gameplay.
Players use an intuitive step system to design and time the movement and positioning of different molecules to make and break bonds to solve a variety of puzzles. Like many other Zachtronics titles,MOLEK-SYNTEZencourages experimentation and optimization with score-based histograms and leaderboards.
8SpaceChem - A Game About Chemical Automation
Steam User Rating: 95%
Released back in 2011,SpaceChemis the oldest of the Zachtronics games available on Steam. The game features a dry visual style that doesn’t help first impressions, but its tight gameplay loop and attentive design make it one of Zachtronics’ best.
InSpaceChem, players are tasked with building factories to synthesize chemical products. Players will be spending a lot of their time inSpaceChemstaring at the chemistry screen itself, breaking apart and combining elements.
7Last Call BBS - A Collection Of Unique Games
This final release from Zachtronics (barring the release of their solitaire collection) features eight full games, each with its unique visual style and distinct gameplay loop. The games included range from a model-making simulator, to classic Zachtronics logic puzzle games, all the way to tile-based matching games.
Last Call BBSwas arguably the perfect send-off for the legendary indie studio, coalescing everything that the studio had done in the past with an abundance of genre mash-ups, puzzles, and visual styles, all with the same Zachtronics charm that fans had come to know and love.
6SHENZHEN I/O - A Puzzle Game About Circuitry
This circuit-building programming game features a clean, circuit-board-style aesthetic and a gameplay loop that revolves around building electronic circuits out of a variety of components and writing assembly code as elegantly as possible.
SHENZHEN I/Ois a mash-up of logic, design, and programming puzzles, and (like many of Zachtronics' games) is a great experience for players looking to challenge themselves.SHENZHEN I/O’sdrag-and-drop design also helps to make it slightly more accessible than Zachtronics' previous titles.
5Infinifactory - An Intuitive Sandbox Puzzler
2015 brought with it one of Zachtronics' most beloved games,Infinifactory, a 3D sandbox puzzler with a clean and simple visual style and a complex, but highly intuitive, gameplay loop that sees players constructing increasingly complex factories to appease alien rulers.
RELATED:Games To Play If You Love Factorio
Infinifactoryfeaturesa story-driven campaignthat takes players through over fifty different puzzles in 3D alien environments, solving them from the first-person perspective using the game’s “block engine” and (optionally) optimizing solutions with the in-game histograms.
4EXAPUNKS - A 90s-Themed Sci-Fi Game About Hacking
Steam User Rating: 96%
This 90s-themed programming puzzle game puts players in the shoes of a hacker, writing viruses visualized by “EXAs” in the form of little robot characters. These “EXAs” can be replicated and ordered around to destroy data and exterminate enemy EXAs as players attempt to hack into a variety of networks.
RELATED:Games With The Best Hacking Mechanics
EXAPUNKSis arguably Zachtronics' best attempt at wrapping dry and complex gameplay in an exciting narrative package,and the 90s-style zines that give players handy information about the game do a lot to improve the game’s immersion and atmosphere.
3TIS-100 - A Puzzle Game About Writing Code
Steam User Rating: 97%
This programming puzzle game tasks players with perusing a 1980s-themed computer manual to decipher how the titular TIS-100 system actually works, and using that reference manual to solve puzzles by writing code.
TIS-100won’t be for everyone. It’s a complex game with next-to-no visuals that’s almost entirely about designing and optimizing intricate solutions to over forty puzzles, and while it’s the perfect game for those who enjoy programming and puzzle games alike, newcomers to Zachtronics should be warned thatTIS-100is a relatively inaccessible experience.
