The game takes you back to the days of mainframe computers and dumb terminals. You’re a new hire at a big corporation Punch Corp. Their programmers are real punchers, and you’re about to become one of them!

Yes. This is a coding job. And it’s tough, because punched tapes are still state of the art. It’s not for everyone! Only real programmers can handle punched tapes. Not like those Fortran hipsters. Do you dare?

About the computer

There are 15 instructions you can use. Instruction is encoded in 4 bits. But you won't need half of them, some of them (like conditions) has no use at all in the game. I wanted to slowly introduce instructions level by level but there was no time left - so you have full manual available where you can find what you need. This is raw coding experience!

The tape has 32 lines you can use for your code. Left part is for encoded instruction, right part is for argument. Unlike the real punched tape, both parts of the tape in the game have the least significant bit on right. Oh, and you'd need to know a little bit of binary, but it's obvious when you are about to code in machine code :)

If you'd like, you want to optimize code for the fewest lines! When you hit ESC after finishing a level, you can see stats in the menu + you can return to every level you visited.

Controls

• control the punching head by keyboard like a real programmer!
• Arrow/WASD to move punching head
• Space - punch a hole into the tape (or remove it if there already is one - what a technology!)
• Esc - back to menu - you can return to levels you already opened
• (cheat code Shift+N to next level, if you are stuck but you'd like to see the rest)

Used tools

• Godot engine
• Inkscape + Gimp
• Dictaphone app in iPhone + Audacity + bfxr.net
• jam.trackr (https://jamtrackr.net)

Walkthrough

If you are stuck, check this walkthrough (no audio in the video, but the game has it)

https://youtu.be/Y315gUxIlEM

No AI used

Sad times when I have to declare that I DIDN’T use AI for my Compo entry. Yes, good old two-day crunch with five hours of sleep, like a real game jam geek, to deliver good old handcrafted game. But I don’t mind if you do use it as long as you follow the LD rules. No hard feelings (even when I think it doesn't have place in Compo). For me, Compo is also about the challenge. When the rules allow Claude and I choose not to use it, that makes it even bigger challenge for me :)

BTW, I use AI daily, so for me, LD is a welcome opportunity to do things the old way. To sit at the computer and punch in code by hand like a psychopath. And I love it!

Versions

• 1.0.0.0: Initial release
• 1.0.0.1: Fixed copy&paste issue in statistics on menu, it displayed number of ticks on place where number of lines should be + fixed number of ticks.
• 1.0.0.2: Fixed COPY instruction - it always stored 0 instead of value of memory[0]
• 1.0.0.3: Fixed REPEAT instruction - it always decreased memory #0 even when you set counter to different one.