Shenzhen I/O Review 

This game is a literal job for some people in electronics.

I'm so fascinated by your series of videos about games like this, because I have absolutely no interest in playing games like this. Seems like way more work than fun. But I like seeing what you enjoyed about it and what you found interesting

Zach is an incredible genius being able to develop so many varied games that have insanely deep levels of challenges. I haven't finished any of them, but I have played almost all of them, and I love them so much. I doubt I'll ever be able to finish SpaceChem, but I'm on the final challenges of TIS-100 I think, and Opus Magnum is accessible enough that I believe I'll finish it someday. Shenzhen is a bit of a different beast, and I haven't played much of it because of that, but I also regard it as insanely well made and I love that Zachtronics is putting out games like this.

I have absolutely no idea what I'm watching.

That pronunciation of конструктор gets me every time =) (btw, it's "constructor" in russian)

The amount of people that criticize the fact that these reviews aren't generic zelda or mario games for the umpteenth time physically upset me. There are plenty of people with zero personality that exist on youtube to reinforce your opinion on those games. Even as a fellow programmer, these games do not appeal to me either, but to borderline insult him based on reviewing games that he wants to instead of what you tell him makes you a terrible person. Grow some goddamn manners.

absolutely love shenzhen i/o, one of my favourite puzzle games, though looking at the comment section, i can see why people don't bother covering stuff like this, what a mess. that said i agree with pretty much all your points, this video made me want to try solving the cold storage bot again, i've been stuck there for a long time and i haven't tried in months

These games definitely don’t interest me, but I am very glad that he is covering them. If he didn’t, then who else would? At least this series is providing something a little different than the rest of the extremely oversaturated youtube analysis community.

I just love the format of your reviews. They're what *real* reviews used to be like, with thought out sections and a conclusion that isn't boiled down to a single sentence, but wraps all the important parts up to few thoughts that are easy to understand and remember. The Zachtronics games aren't for me, but the reviews are enjoyable in themselves.

You're probably the only "large" gaming channel that covers obscure gaming like this It makes me love you even more

This is my first time looking at these comments and it was a mistake.

Holy shit. This is exactly the kind of game that I was looking for. I know that CynicalBrit covered a similar one a while ago that I can't find right now, but this is perfect. Thanks a lot! :D

Can't wait for the Opus Magnum review! :D My favorite game so far!

I'm pretty much not into puzzle games, but I like you are talking about them. Actually, I want to give Shenzhen and Infinifactory a try after watching this series of videos. Thank you for your work.

Matthew and Zachtronics games is like Guts and the boat.

Thanks for these reviews, Matt. I was never exposed to these games and I'm unlikely to play them, but I've learned a lot about a part of gaming that I was largely unaware of.

your videos are super comfy

Been waiting for this one!

Welcome to the club of Kelp Harvester survivors! This difficulty wall in the middle of the second campaign is definitely an issue with the difficulty curve, but the puzzle couldn't be moved because of the story. The original version of the puzzle was even harder, but it was changed twice during Early Access to manage the difficulty, with limited success. Minor nit: you don't need NEG because you can do "mul -1" now.

That kelp harvester puzzle though. What the actual hell.

Man, I don't know how many hours I've put into this game. Sometimes I even play the programming circuits stuff.

I still need to play this one. I didn't really feel spoiled by this review.

I initially was disappointed that Shenzhen just continues the assembly programming of TIS. I appreciate TIS for what it is, but the theme of SpaceChem probably hooked me the most about that game. Having two programming games in a row just seems really excessive to me. However, I think that Shenzhen, which I sometimes call TIS-200, also brings enough new stuff to the table to make it worthwile. Different parts, prices, layouts and connections of pins are all things that weren't possible in TIS. I think your criticism at 3:28 is that cheap solutions can also be the easiest or most elegant, but I don't see a problem with that. I think this surprising application of the DX300 is unintuitive enough to reward a good solution. Your suggestion at 10:32 also doesn't really make sense to me. Of course, storing a container and retrieving it immediately afterwards seems unnecessarily complicated, but in practice you wouldn't be able to tell whether another container will get stored before the other one gets retrieved. I also would like outputs to be less strictly defined, but then Shenzhen would be a different game. By the way, I'm writing this comment much later because the second half of the campaign was way too hard for me. I then replayed SpaceChem and managed to beat every single level and get all achievements. I'm proud I did that. It only took about four years. So then I went back to Shenzhen, got a little further and hit a brick wall again. Yes, it's kelp harvesting. I usually don't watch a video of yours without having beaten the game in question, but in this case I really didn't care. (And just in case: I don't want anybody to give me a hint for kelp harvesting. I either want it to solve myself or never at all.) It's somewhat relieving to see that I'm not the only one who had massive problems with it, but of course it still bugs me. That said, I did manage to beat "Would you believe it?", which was insane as well. Anyway, you have my respect for beating it. I agree that non-blocking inputs are overutilised. They can be helpful but often they are just a bit annoying. I'm sure many people have already told you, but you can negate the accumulator by multiplying it with -1. A horizontal bridge also seems rather pointless to me. But yeah, the swap command would have been a nice addition. And the outputs of the puzzle at 15:44 are indeed needlessly complicated. I have the impression that Zach just went way overboard with the difficulty of the puzzles in the second half in general. Anyway, as much as I like Shenzhen, I think I will take another break from it.

Also anyone think Matt should stream these games and explain how he plays?

So will you ever review exapunks?

I don't understand a single word. I love it.

9:46 It's called "Constructor", you cruel person, and you know it, and we know you know it and are just yanking our chain at this point. ಠ_ಠ

Still haven't gotten around to playing this Zach game. If only they would go on sale more often.

Everyone needs to understand that if Matt wasn't making videos he wanted to do, these videos would be substantially worse. Think about it, do you really want the MGS4 of matthewmatosis videos?

that final countdown song played on synthgenerator

I've been playing Infinifactory for a while now, and I love it! I think it was most enjoyable for me when I played the game sparingly, like 3 times a week, instead of plowing through the levels because the challenge presented in each puzzle often confused me to no end

I was looking for a game for my 2 year old, would you recommend this?

"Justin Ma - Advisor" as in, the FTL/IttB guy? 18:07

So, do I need a degree to play this?

This video needs a MASSIVE trigger warning. I almost died watching this video. jk, I just happen to have returned from an EE exam and as soon as the video started and I saw datasheets and simulations I almost had a Vietnam flashback hahaha. Keep up the good work.

how has this game turned what i just did for my coursework into something fun

Looks like good old fashioned engineering

How many more Zachtronics games are left?

06:39 - Top 10 Anime Betrayals!

Exapunks review please.

Matthewzachtronics

Omg. There goes my night

Your not going to cover Ironclad Tactics?

I fucking love you Matt!!!!

I feel like I want to enjoy these games, and that my brain will melt trying to with anything except infinifactory

Electronic circuit puzzles? You have my attention.

I didn't understand a single thing, yet I watched it anyways. Great channel.

got crippling addiction for solitaire games now

Looking forward to your Sudoku review.

I love Zachtronics games but I won't lie, the assembly games are way more taxing on my brain. This and TIS both I've barely touched, but I wanted to best them before Arx Your review of Arx will probably make me just buy it tho

Can you review Tetris next?

Giving us dat good shit!!

DAE

Im sure these games arent so scary looking after you play them a bit but right now for me its mind melting. For some context I played World of Goo. That game make so angry! Fuck that game.

This and spacechem go so far over my head without actually seeing the tutorials... Well, the complex circuits do with this one at least... And yet, I still want to torture myself. Why?

What is this? SHIT ON SOULS! WHAT ARE THESE NERD GAMES?!!! Ya nerd, ya fricking nerd! Honestly, I appreciate this stuff. These games aren't for me personally, but I'm glad there is someone out-there with a voice creating a buzz for them, hope everyone that enjoys has a good time.

looks like a nightmare

Matthew, 你好，我真的会讲中文。 It's rude to not say this after listening to the ending.

Love this video but all of it goes over my head.

#wowilovesupportingwhatgoodcriticswanttocoverinsteadofbashingtheirvideosbecausetheydontappealtome

i dont have enough braincells for these kind of games

I don't know if being the 667th like on this video makes me a villain or a hero.. Anyway.. great video as always, Matthew!

Who else actually filled out the Visa?

I dont even understand what I'm looking at... or listening to... but I like it

damn, how many zachtronics game are there?

I would have played the sh*t out of this game as a kid. But it's way too similar to my job nowadays.

This reception from you guys made me sad...

There cant be that many more Zachtronics games right guys? Right? They surely have to end at some point?

the deeper you go into these zachtronics reviews the more they sound like matthew is fucking around and creating an ARG where he's reviewing fake games as if they were real. like, i understand all the words he's saying about this thing, but in the order he's putting them, it all sounds so surreal and fake.

The anti trend RU-vidr

The comment sections to these videos really makes you lose faith in humanity.

It looks well made, but I'd only play these _Zachtronics_ games if it was required by my job.

It's funny, I never played any Zachtronics game. And yet I've seen Matts reviews of many other games that I hadn't played and yet was entertained and even considered playing them, such as W101, and yet I can't sit through a single one of these Zachtronics reviews all the way. Guess I'm really just not their target audience.

And to think, just three months ago he was reviewing Sonic Dreams Collection.

This is what I call job, and they pay me for do it, is like build walls or check documents for fun hahahaha

Video starts at 6:36

After about 10 puzzles I asked myself - why won't I just do real programming instead? It's unironically more fun than this game.

You should absolutely play/review Stephen's Sausage Roll. Seriously. It's the only thing that surpasses Zach's games, in my opinion.

Sorry, but I completely don't get a purpose of games like this. If you are a programmer, you don't have too much time for playing games. And if you'll get some time for play a game, you rather want to take some rest and relax, not to play a game about your work. Otherwise, if you are not a programmer but you like things like these, why wasting time playing a game about it, instead of picking up real programming language and start learning, that you can get some work in the future, and earn money ? And sorry if my englih in this post is a little bit broken.

"Waaaaaahhhhh where's my Zelda and Mario?????" On the 10 trillion other RU-vid channels that have already reviewed them.

I fucking love you man but this isn't even something I can listen to while mindlessly grinding in osrs. This is like listening to someone review their favourite IDE.

Still better than the Dark Souls "Remaster"

I don't get Shenzhen I/O. They made a really sweet solitaire game, and they decided to bundle some shitty electronics game with it.

Is this a game?

Thirteenth... no wait

and another one

Oof

oh my dear lord, this is painful to sit through. I'm glad Matthew is making content he wants to make, but I can't say i'm sharing in his excitement. Granted, I think it's important for him to cover these types of games, and i'm happy to throw some dosh his way while he's doing it. Hopefully, he'll move back towards some game coverage i'm interested in watching, but for now i'll bite the bullet and kick back, because I know there's someone out there who are loving his zachtronics videos.

Hi Matthew, I just wanted to try and be constructive if possible. What people love about your old videos, is that you took an mainstream games, usually older ones, and provided a completely new way to look at it. You provided such insightful, brilliant commentary on every game you covered, that it was easy to forget you aren't actually a game designer. But after you shifted to these other games, these niche titles that are heavily slanted towards a particular market, the nature of your content changed. You started providing shorter form commentary on games that 95% of your audience has no interest in ever playing, regardless of your enjoyment of them. Your channel has an identity, based on your previous content, but now that it's been literally years since you have covered anything that your audience has any interest in, you are going to hemorrhage viewers until there are none left. Cover smaller games, cover niche games, but try to do it as an accent to your larger content. I loved your Kula world video because it was different. Just some constructive feedback from another RU-vidr that loves your old content.

So wtf is going on in this video

hey guys look, the fourth review of spacechem in a row!

I really don't like how Zachtronics uses documentation to explain the game... I feel like it is... Lazy? It also makes getting into the game a solid brick wall for some people, especially thise who suffer from dyslexia... Once you smash that wall though, it does become a really good game... Though I really suck at it... I'd be fine if the game had the documentation and a tutorial... Yeah, the first pizzle might be some sort of a tutorial, but not that good.

I love you Matt, but how many more of these games are left? I like when you talk about games with stories or at least mechanics that people usually don't think about. Your MGS, Mario, Zelda, and even recommending series are way better than these Zachtronic games. Only because it's so many puzzle games in a row, that it gets tiring. We love when you show niche titles but you have to mix them up, and a puzzle series isn't the best type to do a multiple video series on. I'll keep sticking with you cause I've literally watched your MGS series reviews more than I can count, but I won't lie when I say I don't find these games at all interesting. Maybe others do.

Yeah, this game really turned me off, it seems too complex. Nice attempt on the review, but I will continue to play games like Cup Head.

First!

Second

sixth

>Dissapear for months >Restart Patreon >Time to regain my audience since I have all this competition now, what game should I cover? >Sonic Porn >Autism Simulators >Not just one autism simulator but fucking 7

I just googled Zachtronics games. We just have to suffer through Opus Magnum review and then it's over, right? We can go back to fun?

"Autism Simulator" God that comment from the last video is so fucking legendary