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Have you played… Opus Magnum?Sound Alchemy
Sound Alchemy
Opus Magnumis the most tactile game I’ve ever played. Playing it makes me remember last Christmas, when I was given one of those wooden assembly kits where you have to snap together the various wood pieces like a jigsaw to create a three-dimensional sculpture. In my case, it was a little steampunk clock, all interconnected gears and ornate swirls. Turning a gear at the bottom would turn other gears, and the minute and hour hands on the clock face would turn in tandem with the gears.
It was very fulfilling to piece together something so beautiful and functional. But what I remember most about it wasn’t the end result. It was the feeling of those wooden pieces snapping perfectly together. Like most people, I’m drawn to tactile things, and the right combination of texture, sound, and resistance can invoke a surprising emotional reaction in me.
Opus Magnumis a puzzle game about building alchemy engines. Each level is played upon a hexagonal grid, and your aim is to turn a certain element or molecule into a certain other element or molecule. To do this, you place down rotating arms, pistons, and all sorts of other interesting mechanisms, and then program in the actions of each part in order to create a contraption that does the job automatically and forever.
Watch on YouTube
Watch on YouTube
I can’t help but imagine how wonderful it would be if you could cross the tactility of Opus Magnum with the grand scale and open worlds ofFactorio. Think how incredible that would be. I’m not sure I’d ever play another game again.
