U.V.S. Nirmana

Spend 10min to find the solution through meditation. Waste 5hr try to put all the parts in the limited space. The difficulty mostly from that you can't find the ONLY connection of the annoying pipes. *I wrote this after stuck at the last step of the last puzzle for over one week.

This game masquerades as a few different things all at once, but what this game really is is a circuits puzzler. Have a very, very strong sense of logic and you'll probably get through a bunch of this quickly. If you mess around with circuits as a hobby, and lord knows people still do, you'll probably smash most puzzles promptly once you parse what's needed of you. If you're not wired this way, if strict boolean-style logic doesn't move you, this game will probably range from difficult to exquisitely frustrating. There are transistors, sensors, capacitors, and a few other things I've forgotten, but if you have an idea what those are and how they work, then you may well do well in this game. Some items can generate signals, or you're given signal feeds, and you can use those to drive other components on your breadboard, I mean your playfield. It's your wiring layer. You need to get a specified output on the oscilloscope, I mean, on the, uhhh, output... area... thing... What mixes it up, though, is that everything is buried under a layer of scifi-religious woo. That's not 5V input, it's a prana field. I'm kind of a sucker for scifi religion (I spent way longer at Destiny than I would have otherwise) so I'm kind of digging on the veneer the game's slapped over this circuitry nonsense. The graphics are adequate, about what I expect for a puzzle game. They should convey what needs doing, they don't often need to be spangly. What makes it harder is a need to be compact. The breadboard, sorry, the playfield is quite compact. Major conductors can only be bent so much. Not every component is always available, clearly just to make things harder. Further complexity comes from how signalling works, which often means you need to have key components not directly over each other. I've been forced to use still more space when it was already at a premium. You're also scored on your compactness and statistically rated against every other player that's turned in a result, but the real thing holding you back is whether you've succeeded or not. A W's a W in this game. I'm a pretty logical guy, I was able to conceptualize my solutions for most puzzles pretty quickly. As of this writing, I've got about five or seven left. There were a few puzzles where my ideal solution wasn't going to fit and I had to wrangle and prune (or in one case, space out) my components to get it to fit. In one case, I had literally idea how to solve the puzzle at all, just no conception whatsoever, until I looked up the electronics equivalent of what I was trying to do. I was competing against some of my friendslist for a time, until I saw them dropping out. I'm the last one standing. As an actual puzzle game, this has made me actually think. I have an idea how to solve it, I have to work out how to do it with the limited pieces available. It uses a sort of logic that only the truly nerrrrdy would have had any grounding in (I am proudly one of these nerrrrds), so it's a far cry from your typical puzzle game. Many will find it hard. I've gotten my value from it, and it's made me work. What more could you want? I couldn't say everybody should pick this up, but if you think you're smart, here's a way to prove it to yourself. Or if you just want to work those brain meats and help keep them swole, again, here we are. Obligatory link to my online stuff and curator in my profile. Eh, it's there, click on some of things if you like. This is all the self-promotion I do here, and it's an effort. I don't want to have to do more.

⣿⣿⡻⠿⣳⠸⢿⡇⢇⣿⡧⢹⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣾⣿⡇⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⡐⣯⠁ ⠄⠄ ⠟⣛⣽⡳⠼⠄⠈⣷⡾⣥⣱⠃⠣⣿⣿⣿⣯⣭⠽⡇⣿⣿⣿⣿⣟⢢⠏⠄ ⠄ ⢠⡿⠶⣮⣝⣿⠄⠄⠈⡥⢭⣥⠅⢌⣽⣿⣻⢶⣭⡿⠿⠜⢿⣿⣿⡿⠁⠄⠄ ⠄⣼⣧⠤⢌⣭⡇⠄⠄⠄⠭⠭⠭⠯⠴⣚⣉⣛⡢⠭⠵⢶⣾⣦⡍⠁⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⠄⣿⣷⣯⣭⡷⠄⠄⢀⣀⠩⠍⢉⣛⣛⠫⢏⣈⣭⣥⣶⣶⣦⣭⣛⠄⠄⠄⠄⠄ ⢀⣿⣿⣿⡿⠃⢀⣴⣿⣿⣿⣎⢩⠌⣡⣶⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣆⠄⠄⠄ ⢸⡿⢟⣽⠎⣰⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢀⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣦⠄⠄ ⣰⠯⣾⢅⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡄⠄ ⢰⣄⡉⣼⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠄ ⢯⣌⢹⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⢸⣇⣽⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⢸⣟⣧⡻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⡻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄ ⠈⢹⡧⣿⣸⠿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠗⣈⠻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⠄ ⠄⠘⢷⡳⣾⣷⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣾⣿⣿⢀⣶⣶⣶⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠇⠄ ⠄⠄⠈⣵⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠄⠄ ⠄⠄⠄⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠘⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠇⠄⠄

very fun zachtronics game, not too difficult just chill <3 I also love the graphics and the vibe

I've played pretty much all of Zach's games, and normally absolutely love them. Unfortunately this one was not as interesting. The components available are limiting, the puzzles are almost entirely about layout rather than process, and basic operations such as negating signals require dirty hacks. You don't get the feeling that there are many possible ways of solving a level. I can only recommend that people get Kaizen instead, as I enjoyed that a lot more.

Good, with a bit of a 'but'. I really enjoyed this game, took me about 5 hours to get through everything, had to walk away and come back with a fresh mind a few times. But the frustration came mostly from there being 'right' answers to some of the puzzles. When comparing it to something like Kaizen or Opus Magnum, which all share some game design philosophy, Nirmana has much tighter build spaces for their solution, which means that some of the puzzles have defininitive 'correct' answers, with no alternative way to build it. Overall the games good, and I did enjoy it, but there is definately some frustration over how the game allows you to approach some puzzles.

Overall the puzzles seem very simple, I did not make it to the end before I stopped but even looking at the images on the store page the solution for each puzzle is a variation of demux, process, mux, with not a lot of variation or complexity. Optimising your solution is basically just squishing your design, maybe swapping the order of muxes and demuxes to fit in better but the approach to a puzzle is always the same, no fundamentally changing your design to optimise it or anything like that. It also gives the feeling of it trying to have some kind of profound message in the labels of the inputs and outputs and the extra information boxes which they label as meditation. It goes on about things that are apparently terms in yoga and eastern philosophy for life force, whether sound and light create thought or when converting between sound and light if you lose any information from a philosophical perspective. It tries to get you to think about when a colour sensor actually perceives the colour from a philosophical standpoint or if a sensor is actually separate or part of the signal, it comes only from a philosophical perspective which I think actually takes away from a game like this and is totally unnecessary since all blocks in this game are black boxes and you have no idea what is going on in them. It basically takes very simple signal processing and tries to put some profound philosophical meaning on top where it feels totally out of place and confusing. I don't know if the philosophical side of it is supposed to be serious or not but it really takes away from the game and makes it on a whole not make sense. The puzzles are easy but the only link to the story (which doesnt make sense anyway) through the labels on inputs and outputs. If you want to play it is probably best to ignore everything except the mechanics. I would not recommend this game if you are looking for a logic based puzzle game.

Definitely a prime Zach-like puzzle game. If you've played this style of game before (Space Chem, Opus Magnum, TIS-100), you basically know what you're getting into. With these games though, the variations are what make them unique among the others. There's not much of a story component to this one, just disparate levels with a sort of space travel Buddhist theme over it. If you're looking for narrative, you won't find it here, but it's definitely got atmosphere. I really enjoyed seeing what level would come next. Space and size constraints play a larger role in this game compared to other Zach-likes. In Opus Magnum, you get an infinite grid to work with. If you can dream up an inelegant solution, you can build it. Here, not so much. The more limited pieces, grid space, and means of connecting pieces mean that you can think of plenty of solutions that simply won't fit on the available grid. This can be a bit frustrating, as you might be sure you know how to complete the puzzle, you just need more space. Each component's up/down orientation can be critical, and you may just barely be able to fit your solution on the grid. Often an answer that won't quite fit requires a different approach than you were imagining, so you may need to walk away and come back to reset if you get stuck in your thinking (as I certainly did). This can be seen as limiting, or instead a means of forcing you to consider alternate solutions. Still, the histograms at the end of each level showing your performance indicate that while there is usually a single most popular solution, there are several ways to solve most puzzles. I will say that for a couple levels, there really did only seem to be a single "correct" solution that would fit, which is unlike most other games in this subgenre. I will also comment that I thought the difficulty was pretty nice on this one, and I say that as someone who has not been able to complete every Zach-like game I've played. The size and component constraints can help to limit your available solutions.

it boosted my ego

I've played a lot of other Zachtronics / Coincidence games, but often they're too hard for me to finish. U.V.S. Nirvana has had a great difficulty level for me. I've finished everything except some of the harder bonus missions, and I really enjoyed my time playing it. Very similar difficulty level to Kaizen: A factory story. I have particularly enjoyed using the histograms to push myself to find more optimised solutions. Knowing that a certain target (e.g. zero flux) is reachable is a great motivation to try and find it. The graphics and visual style is great, with each level having unique artwork. My one "problem" is that the solitaire minigame is way too hard for me this time.