Day Twenty-two

Another evening spent with SpaceChem, which has now taken second place in my Steam games list for hours played. While I've probably spent more time with Half Life and Half Life 2 than SpaceChem, Steam didn't used to keep track of time played.

I went back and finished an optional level tonight to earn the achievement. This game has an unusual take on bonus levels in that they exist within each of the various larger worlds, but you can skip right past them. The game has no points other than comparing your score to the score of others, so they're really just there as out of sequence harder levels.

I was off the charts slow on this bonus level. Usually I at least fall in withing the graph for cycles, but this one I was way slow. But that was more or less by design since I wanted to keep the logic easy so I could beat it and move on. There are large pauses in the last reactor so I didn't have to deal with keeping track of two bits running around at once. A fun challenge of a level though.

SpaceChem introduced some new controls in the world I'm on now, but interestingly the first two levels don't require that you use them. I was able to easily pass them using older game play elements that have been around for many levels. Maybe they're key to driving better efficiency on those levels, but unlike the bonus level, I was within normal ranges for both symbols and cycles. Oh well, I'm sure I'll be forced into them soon enough and wish I hadn't asked for it.

Games Played: 
SpaceChem

Achievements:
Junior Permutation Technician.