Clik here to view.
Playing Opus Magnum by different rules
I’m far from the first person to write about Opus Magnum. It’s a genius game from 2017, made by the studio Zachtronics, in which you program machines to perform alchemy. However, I can just about...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Making a computer in Opus Magnum
I mentioned in my previous post about Opus Magnum that people have built computers in game. I am one of those people, for an appropriate definition of computer. Let’s take a look at what, how and why,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Having the Last Word in Babble Royale
This is a bit of a departure from my other posts. But currently I’m the top ranked player in the world, so I feel like it’s a good idea to give the people who search “biggiemac42 babble royale”...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Simulating Rule 110 in Opus Magnum
In my previous posts about the 2022 Opus Magnum tournament, I mostly left out the final puzzle. It deserves a post of its own. The puzzle concept shares ideas with the “making a computer” puzzle, so...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Breaking “Crypt of the Necrodancer” for profit
Crypt of the Necrodancer is an indie game that recently celebrated its 7th birthday. I have played it for several thousand hours over the past 5 years, and have a handful of world records and former...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Excelling at DIVE via number theory
If you’ve been on the internet in 2022, you have probably encountered Wordle. And if you were on the internet in 2014, you probably encountered 2048. The stories of Wordle and 2048 are remarkably...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Battling the entire world in Opus Magnum
This is the story of “biggie vs the world,” an experimental challenge for the Opus Magnum community. Background The idea began a little over halfway through the 2022 tournament. Some competitors began...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Keeping Classic Tetris Interesting
In 1989, Nintendo released their take on Tetris, the concept of which had been revealed 5 years previously by Alexey Pajitnov. Some quick math says that 1989 was… a long time ago. There have been many...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Building arbitrary Life patterns in 15 gliders
The Conway’s Game of Life community celebrated a landmark achievement on November 9th, 2022. An idea years in the making, the “Reverse Caber Tosser” design finally had all of the pieces it needed to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Memorializing Babble Royale
This blog is now 2 years old. I am still here, and you can expect a few backlogged posts to come out soon. This post is how I am choosing to get back into writing. The free-to-play word game “Babble...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Matching Patterns using Opus Magnum
Hi all, and merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it! Here’s a present from me, a long-awaited blog post about the computation puzzle from the 2023 Opus Magnum tournament. The previous post...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Looking Beyond the NES Tetris Game Crash
It’s been an incredible week for the NES Tetris community. After Blue Scuti’s legendary game 2 weeks ago, stories started to circulate. The narrative eventually became that this Oklahoma teenager...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Defeating Refined Bronze (and losing a cow bet)
This post will talk about the game Opus Magnum, the puzzle Refined Bronze, old and brand-new records, and a long standing bit of community lore. Before I get into any of that though, I want to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reaching Long-Awaited Perfection on Opus Magnum’s Final Level
It’s an exciting day. The 21st of September is already celebrated by fans of Earth, Wind and Fire, including the inaugural Opus Magnum tournament‘s host RP0 who included a themed puzzle called “Do you...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Separating Litharge at Top Speed
It’s been 4 days since Artem uploaded the Universal Solvent 38 cycle solution. Surely that was the exciting cycle record of the year, right? The first main campaign cycle record in 4 years. Well.....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Surrendering Optimally
There I was, working on the computation puzzle for the 2025 tournament, when I see this show up. Few things would get Grimmy pinging me out of the blue, and nearly all of them are worth my immediate...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Conquering the Final Cycle
We did it. The Opus Magnum community has built a solution at minimum cycles to every campaign puzzle. The final cycle, Alcohol Separation 16, fell at the hands of rebix, with significant help from...
View Article