In 2022, Zach Barth introduced that his studio, Zachtronics, was closing. The workforce, which had constructed a repute for beloved puzzle video games like SpaceChem and Opus Magnum, and had launched critical-favorite visible novel Eliza, was able to strive new issues.
“We felt it was time for a change,” Barth advised Kotaku in 2022. “This may sound bizarre, however whereas we received superb at making ‘Zachtronics video games’ during the last twelve years, it was laborious for us to make the rest.”
Since then, Barth and different former Zachtronics workforce members have shaped Coincidence, a “versatile enterprise framework” that’s produced card video games, an academic math-themed racing sport, and — introduced as we speak — a brand new puzzle sport that can look acquainted to Zachtronics followers. Not that we’re complaining!
Kaizen: A Manufacturing unit Story is an “open-ended puzzle automation sport” set in Japan within the Nineteen Eighties. You’ll spend time “designing, constructing, and optimizing manufacturing traces in factories” to “construct calculators, camcorders, arcade machines, and extra as you try and rise by means of the ranks,” in accordance with a press launch.
“We’ve all the time wished to make a sport concerning the heady days of the Japanese bubble economic system,” mentioned Barth within the launch. “With Kaizen: A Manufacturing unit Story, we’re aiming to carry the open-ended design we’re recognized for to a broader viewers with out compromising on depth or complexity.”
Kaizen might be launched on Home windows PC later this yr.