Comet 64

About Comet 64

Comet 64 is a single player simulation game. It was developed by Onur Ayas and was released on February 5, 2021. It received mostly positive reviews from players.

Comet 64 is a programming puzzle game. The year is 1984. All you got is a Comet 64 home computer and the operator's manual it came with.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

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Reviews

74%Audience ScoreBased on 149 reviews

graphics7 positive mentions

story10 negative mentions

Engaging programming puzzle experience with a retro aesthetic and minimalist UI, providing satisfying challenges especially for those who enjoy coding or want to learn programming basics.
Offers a simplified assembly-like language that helps players understand foundational programming concepts such as manual state management, loops, and optimization.
Includes useful debugging tools like step execution and breakpoints, and features tuning for optimized solutions with metrics on code length and execution performance.

The custom programming language has many inconsistent and arbitrary limitations that reduce creativity and make coding frustrating, such as restricted registers, odd type rules, mandatory semicolons, and delayed syntax error reporting.
Puzzles and language design suffer from lack of flexibility and depth, leading to mostly one obvious solution per puzzle and absence of emergent gameplay or 'aha' moments seen in comparable games.
The game lacks a story or compelling narrative, minimal thematic cohesion, and limited polish in UI and editor experience, making it feel more like a plain puzzle set than a fully fleshed game.

story
26 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
12% positive mentions, 50% neutral mentions, 38% negative mentions
The story in the game is widely considered minimal to non-existent, with most users describing it as lacking depth, coherence, or connection to the puzzles. Unlike similar titles, it offers no meaningful narrative, humor, or thematic progression, resulting in a purely puzzle-centric experience that some find uninspiring. The historical setting and secret endings feel tacked on and fail to enhance engagement or provide a compelling storyline.
- “The tasks in TIS-100 and Shenzhen I/O are, of course, also just programming/engineering tasks, but they are knitted together by just a little sliver of a story element, which is just so much more compelling to me.”
- “This seems like a narrowly missed opportunity in Comet 64; there are some small pieces of a mystery to discover, but they are just tacked on to the beginning of the end, while the actual puzzles have nothing to do with the story.”
- “And while not really a problem, there's no real story, and without spoiling it, the in-game messages that you decode, well, have nothing at all to do with the game itself; they certainly didn't add anything to the puzzles or feel of the game for me, rather they just felt tacked on.”
- “The story is lackluster, the problems don't follow any themes, and the problem statements are often poorly written or ambiguous.”
- “This game does not offer any plot or frame narrative, or any build-up to some crowning project that makes use of what you have done before; there are simply 58 programming puzzles that need to be solved.”
- “There are two major problems: first and foremost, there is no discernible story or thread to the puzzles.”
graphics
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
39% positive mentions, 44% neutral mentions, 17% negative mentions
The graphics are praised for their charming retro 80s aesthetic, monochrome color themes, and customizable visual options, creating a well-crafted and appealing interface. While the visuals are generally appreciated as nice and fitting the game's vibe, some users find the graphical puzzle elements overly simplistic or repetitive. Overall, the art style and sound design complement the programming challenge, enhancing the nostalgic and enjoyable experience.
- “Really nice and aesthetic programming game!”
- “The visuals are great, I really like the way it looks, and there's some small (arguably silly, but in the best way) touches I really appreciate like the ability to enable keyboard sounds.”
- “The vibe is 100% in line with TIS-100 and Molek-Syntez with the retro 80s graphics, including the option to customize the colors to match your favorite system from yesteryear.”
- “Nor does the Comet 64 have anything like the real C64's graphics and sound capabilities.”
- “Or even the graphics capabilities of the Apple II from 1977.”
- “The only exception is a neat string-based trick for the graphical levels; once understood, however, you can recycle the exact same algorithm for all the graphical levels, trivializing about a third of the game.”
optimization
17 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
18% positive mentions, 64% neutral mentions, 18% negative mentions
The optimization aspect offers a challenging yet rewarding experience by requiring solutions to meet code length and instruction count targets, encouraging players to refine their approaches. While the programming language is somewhat limited, making deep creative optimization harder, the game balances complexity and accessibility, allowing for endless lines of code and serving as a satisfying puzzle for programmers. However, compared to other programming games, it may lack in humor and narrative cohesion.
- “Having the optimization targets be both lines of code (code golf) and total instructions executed (performance optimization) also help toward this goal.”
- “Very tricky to get fully optimized (2 stars per puzzle) with the limited register set.”
- “Unlike other programming games (basically everything from Zachtronics, though every game that comes from them is a masterpiece and a great option once you finish this one), this one allows you to write an infinite number of lines of code, so optimization is a nice challenge rather than a frustrating necessity.”
- “For quite a few problems, my initial prototype of a solution exceeds the optimization challenge targets by a large margin.”
- “The tasks are not complex enough to warrant different approaches for different optimization targets.”
- “The language is fairly limited and doesn't allow for much creative optimization.”
music
5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
20% positive mentions, 20% neutral mentions, 60% negative mentions
The game's music is notably absent, with only basic sound effects that some find underwhelming but thematically fitting. Several users express a desire for more music options or customizable audio to enhance the experience. Overall, the sound design is minimal and considered lacking compared to similar titles.
- “Sound is just perfunctory in this game and there's no music, which is expected really for a machine with no registers, as it would be very hard to actually play anyway :)”
- “There is no story, no music, and no sandbox even upon completion of the game, which feels lacking in comparison with Zachtronics games—but then again, there is nothing you could want to do on the Comet 64 that you cannot do in a real Python interpreter, which is available to everyone for free.”
- “Thematically apt but "meh" sound effects (no music) with a volume slider in settings.”
- “I wish there were more cosmetic options and maybe some music?”
gameplay
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 75% negative mentions
The gameplay requires some programming knowledge to fully understand its mechanics, which are not clearly explained, leading to potential frustration. Additionally, the core gameplay loop can be somewhat challenging, and the overall experience is relatively short.
- “You also need a little bit of programming background otherwise it will be hard for you to understand the mechanics but it is not impossible.”
- “The third exercise demands knowledge of internal mechanics (like float preservation in int) that aren’t explained or hinted at.”
- “The core gameplay loop has some frustrations as well.”
- “You also need a little bit of programming background; otherwise, it will be hard for you to understand the mechanics.”
grinding
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions
Users find the grinding aspect tedious and frustrating due to overly restrictive mechanics, like limited variable usage and arithmetic operations, which make even simple tasks unnecessarily complicated and detract from the fun.
- “There are other things that make it just feel tedious and not fun.”
- “I was fighting the language's limits constantly -- you only get 2 variables to hold numerical values, plus 1 odd 'switch' value that can replace either of those 2 temporarily, so even simple mathematical calculations become extremely tedious to work out.”
- “Arbitrarily restricting arithmetic operations just to suit a certain kind of pointless puzzles just becomes tedious.”
atmosphere
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions
Users praise the game for its authentic retro atmosphere and engaging ambiance, highlighting it as a key strength. The atmosphere complements the gameplay well and is considered a standout feature.
- “It captures the retro atmosphere perfectly.”
- “An ideal game, in my opinion, would be one that combines the narrative of Hacknet with the puzzle-solving and atmosphere of this game.”
- “Fun game, good atmosphere.”
emotional
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions
Users felt intellectually challenged and engaged by the game, experiencing a sense of accomplishment despite some difficulty compared to friends. The emotional impact centers on feeling mentally stimulated and involved.
humor
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions
Users find the humor in this game lacking compared to previous Zachtronics titles, noting it has less comedic and cohesive storytelling than games like Human Resource Machine.
- “Zachtronics games at least have some story and/or humor.”
monetization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions
Users feel the game's monetization appears rushed and unoriginal, resembling a straightforward copy of the Zachtronics formula, suggesting the developers prioritized quick profit over innovation.
stability
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
0% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 100% negative mentions
The game experiences occasional visual glitches, such as register display errors, but these do not affect overall program functionality or stability.