Writings of Mass Deduction

This is the kind of game I was hoping to discover when I started looking for hidden gems in the indie game catalogue. This game is frickin’ fantastic. “Assembly Line” tasks you with creating an assembly line, piece by piece, to recreate a prototype. Each level you’re given a sheet of metal you must cut, paint, put holes in, etc., and you must position and adjust each piece of equipment to do all the right things in the right order.

What makes it amazing is the layers upon layers as you get into higher levels (mixing pain, for example), and the fact that you can only see the finished product. You could play hundreds of puzzle games, I suspect, and not find something exactly the same as this. In a world full of match-3 puzzle games, it’s wonderful to see something so completely different. So much so that I’ll completely look past the non-ironic use of what look like a high-res implementation of 8-bit era personal computer graphics. 80 Microsoft Points for this very, very playable hidden gem.

Here’s what the developer (LoneWolf Studios) has to say about the game:

“Do you have what it takes to put together a manufacturing line to produce the desired product? Find out by using up to 12 of the 25 different machines to create the requested product. 100 levels are included and once these are completed, you will gain access to the level editor to continue creating your own levels. Unlock new machines as you complete more levels. Can you figure it out?”