It’s as if the game says “Well, if you can do that, I’m sure you’ll have no problem with this.”Ĭalling it a difficulty curve is underselling it. Every time you complete a level, another one comes along that makes the one you just poured your soul into for an hour and a half look like a Sunday afternoon stroll. Every time you load up a level, and see what you’re given, and what you’re expected to make out of it, there’s usually one appropriate reaction: “wait, you want me to do what?”īut you completely control the pace of events – you have as much time as you need – and as you think, the game sits back and allows you to make the mistakes that you need to make as you work out whatever new tactic this level requires. The complexity of the levels increases exponentially, from individual reactors shuffling atoms around to giant petro-industrial complexes that spread across half the planet, and as the complexity increases, so do the demands placed on you. It’s a weird feeling, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt a video game display so much confidence in me. I just wanted to get all that out of the way, too.īecause what makes SpaceChem great – frustratingly, mind-bogglingly, three-in-the-morning-and-why-won’t-this-fucking- work great – is something else. Then you get special reactors – reactors that can sense different elements and respond accordingly, or reactors that can fuse elements together, creating a new, larger atom. First you come across levels that require more than one reactor – what you thought was about as complicated as a SpaceChem level could get turns out only to be a component in a far more intricate reaction.
As you get comfortable with the basic interactions, the game starts throwing more at you. It wants water? You’d better grab a couple of hydrogen atoms, an oxygen atom, bond them together and drop them off. You instruct them to pick up atoms, manipulate them into molecules, and deliver them to the output area. In each level of SpaceChem, your job is to create a path for a pair of devices – they’re called waldoes – to follow. I just wanted to get all that out of the way. The tutorial is awful: if you’re going to understand how this game works, well, you’re pretty much on your own. The overarching story is a mild diversion. SpaceChem isn’t a pretty game if it put on a nice shirt, it might be described as looking functional.
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