Aside from more Terraria, I tried MHRD today. I guess you could say it's a programming "game", but instead of writing regular code for stuff, or even the low-level pseudo-assembly like in TIS or Shenzhen, you're writing hardware. The game starts you off with a NAND gate and it's up to you to use it to construct various other pieces of "micro hardware" (which is also the name of the game - Micro HaRD), each a little bit more difficult than the last. Eventually these pieces, stacked up, make for something that's complicated enough to qualify as a simple CPU.
It's a nice concept, and also slightly educational in this narrow category, but as a game, I find it was lacking. Inevitably, I must compare it to Zachtronics' games, and it basically falls short in every aspect.
First of all, the presentation. It's entirely possible it was going for an archaic feel, but not allowing me to use my mouse didn't help the game in any aspect and only made navigating around that little bit more difficult. Also it had no background music whatsoever, instead opting to have the hum of a computer and the clacking of the keys as I pressed them to satisfy my audio needs. I can't remember when I've last muted a game as I was playing it, but I don't need more hum and double the clack each time I press a key. These sounds are already there, and at least the hum is something I could live without entirely.
Secondly, perhaps inevitably, the puzzles, if I can even call them that, were too unimaginative. I say inevitably, because there's only so many options to make these logic gates and other pieces, solutions are bound to be the same. Not only that, if you've ever been taught how to make these things, then you already knew the answers. These were standard problems with standard solutions. I can't say off the top of my head if you could even make non-standard problems given this theme of using logic gates, or if mostly everything's already been solved, but it's definitely possible for something like the pseudo-assembly of Shenzhen. Shenzhen's puzzles offered a wide variety of solutions, some not even objectively better than others.
Finally, if this was indeed intended as a educational game for people who had some idea of how this kind of logic worked, but hadn't actually studied logic circuits (I kind of qualify), it would be at least a bit fun as you realize how simply some of these things can really be made. But it's not very educative, as you're bound to get a correct answer by just throwing enough circuitry at the problem, and it doesn't do much to tell you if or how your design should be improved, nor does it explain much as to how these solutions should be implemented. At least for the first part, again something Zachtronics does better with their leaderboard system.
So, overall, I wouldn't recommend this "game", if it can even be called that. If you're interested about this subject, flat out trying to learn it somewhere would be a better idea.
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