EXAPUNKS

EXAPUNKS is Zachtronics in their tightest form yet. The year is 1997, you used to be a hacker, and now you have the phage. The deal is straightforward: one hack, one dose. The arc of the game runs through your gradual loss of options while your skills as a programmer keep getting sharper.

The puzzles are programming exercises wrapped in zine aesthetics. Each issue of TRASH WORLD NEWS — the in-game underground computer magazine — delivers tutorials, tips, and the next batch of jobs. You write programs for EXAs (Execution Agents) in a simple register-and-link assembly that scales to incredible complexity once you start coordinating multiple agents replicating themselves through networks.

The targets are diverse: banks, universities, factories, TV stations, highway signs, game consoles, the government, and eventually your own body. Slack-off minigames like ПАСЬЯНС (Solitaire) and HACK*MATCH live on hackable Sawayama consoles, and you can build your own homebrew games for the TEC Redshift. Hacker battles let friends run programs directly against each other, and Steam Workshop supports community-created puzzles.