Recent reviews by Arch

Short version: AWESOME! If you like sandbox puzzle games, then this is a must-have.

Long version: In typical Zachtronics style, Opus Magnum has a very small set of "rules" you need to learn to play the game, which is basically assembling elements of a factory to produce end-products from basic ingredients. But these rules work for solving an unlimited number of puzzles. And use of the Steam Workshop means that you will be able to play new and interesting puzzles designed by other players for a really, really long time.

In Opus Magnum, you aren't constrained by floor space, or how efficiently you build your machine to solve the puzzle. Where the real challenge comes in is that you can optimize your machine for area, cost, or time -- or a combination of the three. If you don't want to optimize, you can just solve the puzzle however you want -- which means if you want an "elegant" solution rather than a more optimal one, no problem. This is the hallmark of Zachtronics games -- come up with a solution *your way*. Play how you want -- the game only stipulates what tools you can use and what the end result for each puzzle needs to be -- how you get there is entirely up to you. And this means you can also play the same puzzles over and over again and enjoy yourself every time.

Excellent game!! If you like Portal/Portal2, or Myst, you should enjoy Talos Principle. As you play through higher levels, the puzzles include additional tools you need to use to solve them (and you have to unlock the tools, occasionally). You are truly interacting with an environment -- you can place objects wherever it is legal to place them.

On the negative side, some of the things you need to complete a puzzle are too well-hidden (at least for me) -- and I seriously doubt that if you didn't spend time crawling over every inch of the play area, walls, etc., that you'd ever find them. Like a passage hidden in the shadow that you can't see -- you have to walk into it to know it's there. Or the lever that's so well hidden behind bushes that until you get right on top of it, there's no way to see it. Stuff like that. To me, it's very frustrating that I have to _find_ the puzzle, before I can _solve_ the puzzle. And some of the "star" puzzles are so much of a stretch to figure out what the puzzle is, I think it would be impossible without help from the internet.

I haven't been able to determine the purpose of the computer terminals -- if it's just about back story, or if they have something to do with the puzzles.

Best comment I can give: If these guys publish another game like this one, I'm most probably going to get it.