Human Resource Machine

A streamlined and sleek introduction to assembly code disguised as a puzzle game carries out what it sets to do. Which is uh, that. Not much else but that's ok! It's funny, challenging but good at introducing new concepts. It's also not afraid to tell when when stuff gets stupid hard because lets be real coding is stupid hard. But by extension it's kinda alienating. I think when you are making a game that covers a niche as slim as this, it can be difficult to get it accessibly to as many people as possible. It seems like they did what they could in that regard, and then focused on making it an entertaining product as well. It succeeds in both, and while I still prefer other Tomorrow Corp games this is by no means a dud in their catalog. Fun stuff!

I've been playing a series of programming games lately, a couple Zachtronics games (TIS-100, SHENZHEN I/O) as well as MHRD, and now Human Resource Machine. HRM is the first I've completed of the set but possibly the least satisfying. All of the games are programming games of a sort using simplified, restricted programming environments, with HRM placing the most blatant "game" facade on the proceedings by using a solely point-and-click interface as well as its cartoon style graphics.

Unfortunately, as the game progresses, HRM's visual style begins to betray its format as you start to trace arrows, or comment your programs by "writing" on a label by literally drawing letters with your mouse. It just becomes more and more annoying as you just want to type code rather than try to manually diagram it out. More annoying, even at the highest play speed, you have to watch your character perform each program step by step as he flitters about the screen. Once you get to the point where you're trying to do multiple iterations of a test, it just becomes annoying to sit through as you work your way through a small bug or find an anticipated data set at the end of the test data. It also makes the prospect of going back to complete all of the optimization challenges unappetizing.

So for someone who has little programming experience and enjoys logic game, I can see this game rubbing the itch. Those with more experience will unfortunately be frustrated by HRM, and there are better choices out there.