Three Dollar Quill

Kaizen Kaizen Kaizen.

Yeah, we all thought that wasn't ever going to happen again. But I finally took the new not-Zachtronics game for a spin, and just-one-more-leveled my way through a good portion of the early game.

My general impressions thus far are that this is probably the most approachable zachlike I've tried (synthesis, not coding; no transmutation; square grid; tracks don't turn; only have to handle one cycle (which also allows for a live preview of what happens); there's a limited and global bank of instruction slots; welding happens without an explicit instruction, but only where the player specifies; no player intervention is needed to output the product; I haven't needed to make use of a wildly specialized control scheme to play it on the Deck, and it should work equally well with just mouse), although I can guess at some of the tools that could show up if, as I assume, the back half of the game introduces some new tools. (To be clear, "approachable" is not a pejorative. If I want to get seriously challenged so I can show off my leet zachlike skillz, TIS-100 is still there for me. Waiting. Watching. Mocking.) Anyway, the core puzzle stuff feels nice, but the bundled solitaire game (it really is a not-Zachtronics game!) is beyond my comprehension and patience right now.

And those are my initial impressions from playing the early stuff while mostly not sick. It feels like it could be a solid introduction to the genre, which seems backwards, but oh well.

Anyway, it's late now, and I'm going to wrap up.

Good night.