July 2016 Media Thread

ArisKatsaris

This is the monthly thread for posting media of various types that you've found that you enjoy. Post what you're reading, listening to, watching, and your opinion of it. Post recommendations to blogs. Post whatever media you feel like discussing! To see previous recommendations, check out the older threads.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.
Use the "Other Media" thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn't fit under any of the established categories.
Use the "Meta" thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.

Rules:

Please avoid downvoting recommendations just because you don't personally like the recommended material; remember that liking is a two-place word. If you can point out a specific flaw in a person's recommendation, consider posting a comment to that effect.
If you want to post something that (you know) has been recommended before, but have another recommendation to add, please link to the original, so that the reader has both recommendations.
Please post only under one of the already created subthreads, and never directly under the parent media thread.
Use the "Other Media" thread if you believe the piece of media you want to discuss doesn't fit under any of the established categories.
Use the "Meta" thread if you want to discuss about the monthly media thread itself (e.g. to propose adding/removing/splitting/merging subthreads, or to discuss the type of content properly belonging to each subthread) or for any other question or issue you may have about the thread or the rules.

Recently I've caught myself delving more into games that are basically programming puzzles.
This means games that have acceptable but not overtly superb graphics, and they all happen in stages, each a different and more difficult puzzle than the previous, all to be solved by programming the interactions of some basic components.
Here's the ones I like the most.

Windows / Steam:

SpaceChem (about producing chemical components in space)
TIS-1000 (computation to be done on a parallel grid, highly textual)
Infinifactory (constructing things for your alien overlor

... (read more)

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I've been playing the 3rd release in the Zero Escape series, Zero Time Dilemma (3DS release June 28, PC release June 29). It's a mix of VN and "escape the room" in terms of genres. In Zero Time Dilemma, 9 people are stuck in a simulated space ship, to test the effects of people flying to mars. Because the projected flight path puts the sun between the earth and mars, there will have to be radio silence for a few days. Several hours before the radio silence is lifted, the group is forced to participate in a game by an entity called 'Zero'. Each player has to wear (or rather, wakes up wearing) a bracelet, which functions as a watch and as an injector of sleeping & amnesia drugs. Zero has a fascination with branching of time - near the start of the game he tells a story about a runner. She runs through the park every morning. At a particular branch, she usually always goes right. However, one day, she goes left. On the left path, she comes across an old man who she sees often when running in the mornings. The old man asks her "hey, this is different from your usual route. Why did you go left?" The woman answers "because there was a snail." Later that day, police finds the woman dead in the bushes of the left path. "Isn't it curious, how one snail can affect a life so much?" Zero forces the players to participate in "Decision Games". The players are told that... * There is only one way out, and that's through the big door with the X * You need at least 6 X-passes to open the big door * When the door is opened, it opens for 30 seconds - afterwards, it doesn't open anymore, EVER * An X-pass will be revealed to the group if a person dies. In other words... 6 people must die. The players are split up into 3 teams of 3 members each (for maximum tribalism?) and then are told of their first decision game - a screen turns on, showing the names of the other teams. Each team is to vote which other team should be executed. If a team has 2 or more votes, it is executed. I