Gosh. What a fantastic Zachlike! I played on/off for about 3 months, with a total of 72 hours of gameplay to beat every level in the game, and I was always looking forwards to playing more.

The core mechanic is incredibly simple: you have a tape of instructions that you can read from one end with scanners and print on the other end with stampers. Other than that, you just have conveyor belts, pipes (for intersecting paths), and most interestingly: goals and trash bins. Everything you create has to go out through one of these exits, and you have full control on where to place them on the square grid. This quickly leads to lots of possibilities!

It doesn't take long before you reach levels that ask you to do really simple tasks (reverse the tape, for example), that actually requires some clever tricks and lots more space and time than you might expect. Rarely do these tasks get too complicated that they can't be explained in a couple of sentences.

What's so amazing is that even though almost every level gives you the exact same tools and building space, each level feels like it's own mountain to climb.

The keyboard shortcuts take forever to get used to (I was still messing some of them up even at the end of my playthrough!) but they are so immensely useful in putting together and reshaping designs that once you get the hang of them, it will feel like you're a photoshop wizard employing a million shortcuts to whip up your next piece.

There is some level of plot happening in the background, but its fairly minimal and not at all necessary in understanding the gameplay. For the most part, I disconnected with it and just played for the puzzles.

And yes, the last puzzle is a doozy. But it's amazingly simple at its core and is such a great finale!