Kaizen – A Factory Story now has a demo. The new open-ended automation puzzler looks like a Zachtronics game, but that development team has disbanded and this is a game developed by Coincidence (who all have worked on a Zachtronics game at some point including one Zach Barth.
The demo will give you a taste of a few puzzles to solve, create an assembly line for various electronics. If you’re a fan of Zachtonics’ magnum opus, coincidentally called Opus Magnum, you’ll find Kaizen’s style of automation programming rather familiar, from the green background to the use of sliders and arms, as well as a timeline editor on the bottom of the screen to visually program each part of the assembly line. No hexagons. Or fantasy alchemy. Just you building consumer goods (including cameras and mecha toys) during the height of Japan’s bubble economy in the 80s.
And yes, there are high score histograms to encourage programming heads and those that majored or currently majoring in computer science a reason to further optimise their code and/or assembly line.
If you love what you played of the demo, even better news: Kaizen: A Factory Story will be out on July 14 on PC (Steam).