Best Zachtronics Games

Best known for their complex puzzle games, some of which include some form of engineering, Zachtronics is an old and trusted brand that has been consistently putting out games on Steam since 2011 with the release of SpaceChem.

Zachtronics games are perfect for players who love to think and deliberate over clever, challenging puzzles, and the more recently released Zachtronics games tend to feature clean and well-polished visuals that make them somewhat more accessible. Among their many titles, Zachtronics has also released several unique versions of computer solitaire, which is included here under The Zachtronics Solitaire Collection, which is also available on Steam.

While Zachtronics did get their start with the 2009 game, Infiniminer, this list is exclusively concerned with readily available Zachtronics games published on Steam.

12 Mobius Front '83 - An Advance Wars-Style Tactics Game

Steam User Rating: 75%

Released: 2020
Platform(s): PC

This turn-based tactics war game was released in 2020 and, along with other games such as Ironclad Tactics and Eliza, sticks out like a sore thumb amid Zachtronics' other games. The strategy and tactics in Mobius Front '83 are heavily focused on choke points, facilitated by the fact that only infantry can move through forests, allowing players to funnel enemy tanks and APCs through kill zones.

Infantry in Mobius Front is very slow, forcing players to play around them and focus on vehicular combat. Although Mobius Front's accessible gameplay is aimed at fans of strategy and tactics games, fans of other Zachtronics games may find some fun in the puzzle-like missions supported by the game's turn-based nature.

11 Ironclad Tactics - A Strange And Chaotic Card Game

Steam User Rating: 75%

Released: 2013
Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, Mobile

This deck-building game was released back in 2013, long before games like Slay The Spire popularized computer card games and deck-building with its roguelite structure. Ironclad Tactics is very different from modern deck-building games, with an extremely unique and fluid combat system that won't be for everyone.

Ironclad Tactics is set in an alternate version of the American Civil War, featuring steam-powered robots that are reminiscent of more recent mech games like Iron Harvest. The game's story is told through graphic novel cutscenes to good effect, and although Ironclad Tactics is a turn-based game, it features a turn clock that pushes the turn of play and keeps things fast-paced. However, this clock also adds a great deal of chaos, and the lack of a pause option forces players to make decisions on the fly.

10 Eliza - An Emotional Visual Novel About AI

Steam User Rating: 92%

Released: 2019
Platform(s): PC, Nintendo Switch

This complete left-turn for Zachtronics is a visual novel game that's bereft of the studio's usual combination of automation, programming, and puzzles. Eliza features a great art style, a well-written script, and talented voice work that combine to make a well-rounded and emotional narrative experience.

Eliza is aimed at a completely different demographic than most other Zachtronics games, but if anything, Eliza shows just how capable and flexible Zachtronics is as a developer. The game's story is centered around an AI-driven therapy service, so the narrative can get quite heavy at times, but for those who don't mind an emotional experience, Eliza is a wonderfully strange diversion in Zachtronics' history.

9 MOLEK-SYNTEZ - A Minimalist Game About Chemistry

Steam User Rating: 92%

Released: 2019
Platform(s): PC

Like its peers, MOLEK-SYNTEZ is a programming puzzle game that tasks players with creating drugs out of abstracted bonds, atoms, and molecules. The game's simple, abstract black-and-white visuals are minimal and unimpressive, but they do a good job of not distracting the player from the game's strong gameplay.

Players use an intuitive step system to design and time the movement and positioning of different molecules to make and break bonds to solve a variety of puzzles. Like many other Zachtronics titles, MOLEK-SYNTEZ encourages experimentation and optimization with score-based histograms and leaderboards.

8 SpaceChem - A Game About Chemical Automation

Steam User Rating: 95%

Released: 2011
Platform(s): PC and Mobile

Released back in 2011, SpaceChem is the oldest of the Zachtronics games available on Steam. The game features a dry visual style that doesn't help first impressions, but its tight gameplay loop and attentive design make it one of Zachtronics' best.

In SpaceChem, players are tasked with building factories to synthesize chemical products. Players will be spending a lot of their time in SpaceChem staring at the chemistry screen itself, breaking apart and combining elements.

7 Last Call BBS - A Collection Of Unique Games

Steam User Rating: 95%

Released: 2022
Platform(s): PC

This final release from Zachtronics (barring the release of their solitaire collection) features eight full games, each with its unique visual style and distinct gameplay loop. The games included range from a model-making simulator, to classic Zachtronics logic puzzle games, all the way to tile-based matching games.

Last Call BBS was arguably the perfect send-off for the legendary indie studio, coalescing everything that the studio had done in the past with an abundance of genre mash-ups, puzzles, and visual styles, all with the same Zachtronics charm that fans had come to know and love.

6 SHENZHEN I/O - A Puzzle Game About Circuitry

Steam User Rating: 95%

Released: 2016
Platform(s): PC

This circuit-building programming game features a clean, circuit-board-style aesthetic and a gameplay loop that revolves around building electronic circuits out of a variety of components and writing assembly code as elegantly as possible.

SHENZHEN I/O is a mash-up of logic, design, and programming puzzles, and (like many of Zachtronics' games) is a great experience for players looking to challenge themselves. SHENZHEN I/O's drag-and-drop design also helps to make it slightly more accessible than Zachtronics' previous titles.

5 Infinifactory - An Intuitive Sandbox Puzzler

Steam User Rating: 95%

Released: 2015
Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4

2015 brought with it one of Zachtronics' most beloved games, Infinifactory, a 3D sandbox puzzler with a clean and simple visual style and a complex, but highly intuitive, gameplay loop that sees players constructing increasingly complex factories to appease alien rulers.

Infinifactory features a story-driven campaign that takes players through over fifty different puzzles in 3D alien environments, solving them from the first-person perspective using the game's "block engine" and (optionally) optimizing solutions with the in-game histograms.

4 EXAPUNKS - A 90s-Themed Sci-Fi Game About Hacking

Steam User Rating: 96%

Released: 2018
Platform(s): PC

This 90s-themed programming puzzle game puts players in the shoes of a hacker, writing viruses visualized by "EXAs" in the form of little robot characters. These "EXAs" can be replicated and ordered around to destroy data and exterminate enemy EXAs as players attempt to hack into a variety of networks.

EXAPUNKS is arguably Zachtronics' best attempt at wrapping dry and complex gameplay in an exciting narrative package, and the 90s-style zines that give players handy information about the game do a lot to improve the game's immersion and atmosphere.

3 TIS-100 - A Puzzle Game About Writing Code

Steam User Rating: 97%

Released: 2015
Platform(s): PC

This programming puzzle game tasks players with perusing a 1980s-themed computer manual to decipher how the titular TIS-100 system actually works, and using that reference manual to solve puzzles by writing code.

TIS-100 won't be for everyone. It's a complex game with next-to-no visuals that's almost entirely about designing and optimizing intricate solutions to over forty puzzles, and while it's the perfect game for those who enjoy programming and puzzle games alike, newcomers to Zachtronics should be warned that TIS-100 is a relatively inaccessible experience.