![]() Seeing that I hit the average on my size and cost, but was a bit slower than average on speed nearly always sent me right back into the puzzle I’d just completed to try and shave a few cycles off of my design. This open information motivated me in a way I wasn’t expecting. I would lay in bed at night building more efficient water machines in my head, then wake up early to test them. You can see the rough averages of what most people managed to hit for that puzzle in the form of a set of bar graphs, as well as specific bests for anyone on your friends list – there’s also an option to turn on the top scores in the world once you’ve beaten the campaign. Sure, I could half-heartedly slap together a big and ugly answer to most levels without too much challenge, but that wouldn’t earn me the satisfaction that a finely tuned piece of machinery generates.Īfter completing a level, you are presented with leaderboards based on the three criteria of speed, size, and cost. Through all the testing and refining and retesting, the main thing pushing me to find better solutions was my own genuine desire to do so – a desire created by the very natural way Opus Magnum promotes a sense of competition. It generally didn’t take too much massaging to get a machine to behave how I wanted when it began acting up, but I still found myself wishing these interactions were better explained.Īnything You Can Build I Can Build Better Sometimes pieces will repeat their commands while others are still going, but other times empty placeholders will be automatically added to keep each piece in sync. ![]() There are some handy keyboard shortcuts that speed up the programming once you get the hang of them, but the command timeline didn’t always behave how I expected it to. Placing and positioning each machine piece is only half of building a working assembly line, with the other half taking the form of programming those pieces to take set actions in perfect harmony with one another – moving, then letting go of an ingredient just as another arm gets ready to grab, and then move it somewhere else. It is an extremely useful feature because it meant I could safely test out new ideas without potentially ruining the work I had already done.ĭespite the relatively straightforward goal of each level, Opus Magnum has a lot of different moving parts I had to learn to control. Thankfully, you aren’t locked into only one strategy, as Opus Magnum lets you save and duplicate machines so you can play around and experiment with different solutions. ![]() So Opus Magnum becomes a game of careful optimization toward each of the tips of that triangle, with different goals requiring completely different designs within the same level. Sometimes, going faster means spending more money, while building small often means moving slowly. There are three criteria it keeps track of: How long it takes you to assemble the target product six times, how many hex tiles you take up while doing it, and how much all the machine parts you’ve used cost.ĭifferent goals require completely different designs within the same level.įrequently, those three qualities are in direct conflict with each other. There’s no mandatory score target you have to hit, and no goal beyond creating a functioning machine, but that doesn’t mean Opus Magnum doesn’t challenge you. ![]() ![]() Every puzzle gives you an alchemical product to create and near-infinite freedom to build the machine that creates it. That takes some doing, because there’s no “correct” solution to anything. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |