Cyber Sentinel Reviews

Great game about visual programming with correctly increasing complexity If you like games like this, you should definitely buy it.

If you enjoy games where you plan a series of manoeuvres to accomplish a goal while avoiding collisions (like Opus Magnum) then you should consider adding this game to your library. It has a unique "programming" format that really works for the way the game is designed. The puzzles are challenging but not so difficult that you give up after a couple of levels.

Great indie game, very addictive, intuitive gui and very well polished. Nice features like sharing your solutions and checking out others approaches to problem solving. Surely worth checking out and in very reasonable price!

Fun + I learn The game is great, the tutorial is very good, the learning curve is perfect

Nice puzzle game about finite state maschines. If you like programming games like Human Rescource Maschine or Space Chem you'll have fun with this one. Besides the campaign there's a level editor and community levels comfortably downloadable from within the game. So there's as much content as you like. The campaign story might as well not exist, although the presentation is quite nice. But stories are not why we play these games, right? The controls can be a little finicky at times and cause you to accidentally delete a state transition or drag the wrong component. A feature to save/restore multiple solutions for a level similar to how HRM does it would be useful to be able to try different attempts.

The tutorial seems to be broken. It doesn't start playing at first until I click the back button and answer "no" when it asks me if I want to exit the tutorial. After that, there doesn't seem to be anything that causes it to advance. I've clicked everything onscreen with ever button on the mouse, and pressed every button on the keyboard, and nothing does anything. I can play the level by exiting the tutorial, but I can tell there are things about the program editor that I wasn't able to figure out by trial and error. If this problem gets fixed, I'll give the game another try.

This is a case where I really don't like Steam's binary review system. Because, while I like this game, it has some problems, and I wish I could reflect that in my rating. It's an obvious mobile port, the tutorials didn't even bother changing "tap" to "click". The cutscenes will give you flashbacks to the mid 90s. While it does have good aspects as a programming game, its puzzles won't scratch the programming "itch" as well as a Zachtronics game would. The solution space is too narrow to allow for truly innovative solutions, and the puzzles overall lack that "eureka" quality. Overall, the game feels like it lacks polish, and could have done with some more development time. While I did enjoy the game, and I do recommend it to those who enjoy programming games, my recommendation is not as strong as it would be for other games in this genre. Maybe buy it when it's on sale.

[h1]TR;DR Simple (but not too easy) programming game at a reasonable price[/h1] This is an interesting twist on programming games (The first video on the store page is a good gameplay example). You start with a cube (representing a hacking probe) that can move around a series of rooms like a maze (representing some sort of cyberspace architecture that you are trying to hack). You need to get the cube to move various locations in the maze (representing data file locations) to complete each level. However all movement is pre-programmed, and you have a limited way to get the cube to do what you want. You write programs by putting "nodes" of one of five commands together (move Left, Right, Up, Down, and wait), and setting up different colored tiles within the maze. These colored tiles are branch points for your program, and how you get the cubes to change direction. For example, "move left until land on blue tile, then move down". There are about 45 levels and the difficulty varies. It takes anywhere from a few minutes to solve most levels to a handful that I've had to put aside for a few days cause I just wasn't seeing how to solve it. Since you're not limited by the length of programs, you can "brute-force" levels by having lots of nodes and colored tiles (but where's the fun in that?) I should mention that the layout of chapter 2 level 6 is a bad idea by the design team IMHO. There are slight changes that they could have made to keep the challenge of the level without having the layout looking exactly like a "good luck cross" (google "fylfot" or play the game if you don't know what I'm talking about). I understand the various historical and non-offensive usages of this particular symbol (various religions, Finnish Air Force, etc) but I still think there there are enough people that might be offended that the designers will lose potential sales by having this level in the game. Again, there is no reason to have something controversial in such a good game. When you solve a level, you get between 1 and 3 "multipasses" depending on how well written your code is. So one challenge after you solve a level is to optimize your solution. Also the January update added a global stats board that tells you how well you did compared with everyone else. There is a level editor and community mazes (I have yet to try these), so you're not going to run out of challenges. As far as I can tell, this game does not do Steam Sync, which is annoying (but alright for the relatively cheap price). The graphics are somewhat flashy for a programming game, but still very functional. There's something very pleasing about sitting back and seeing your cube move through the maze. I'd recommend turning off the bloom effects and the TV-screen effect. Each chapter of the game starts with a brief graphic-novel narration setting up the backstory (another interesting bonus). Overall this game is an 8/10 (10/10 if the designers change Chapter 2, level 6). Ten bucks is maybe pushing the price to value ratio, but if you find it at even a slight discount then I'd definitely get it. 45 levels multiplied by about 5 minutes per level, plus community levels and you can figure out how much game value you are getting.

This is fun. I am not exaclty certain about the hacker thing because this game has little to do with real hacking. I believe that was added perhaps for marketing purposes. That said, you solve puzzles/challenges using logic. The goal is to solve the challenges with the fewest number of steps. The tutorial is helpful to get you started but it's easy to catch on and away you go. Most interesting to me was when your solution "blows up" ,you have the opportunity to tweak and get it right. Game can be finished in 4-5 hours. Certainly worth at least the current discounted price.

Cyber Sentinel is an interesting twist on a Turing machine - instead of a tape that can be moved right or left, a matrix is used allowing for a 2-dimensional puzzle to be constructed and solved. This game is not for everyone. If you don't enjoy the kind of puzzle that makes you feel like an idiot until you reach the "Eureka!" moment that makes you feel smart again, you won't like this. Some of the puzzles border on the fiendish, and I haven't even completed the game yet. I'm having too much fun optimizing my solutions to use the fewest number of states I can manage. You don't need to be a programmer, or even understand what a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_machine]Turing machine[/url] is, to have fun with this game. Having a logical mind and enjoying puzzle solving is all you really need and something puzzle afficianaods typically have anyway. Having done some fiddling with Turing machines in the past certainly helped me understand things quicker, though! [u]Pros[/u] [list] [*]Great concept for a game, with credit granted to Alan Turing. [*]You don't have to be as smart as Turing was to play the game. [*]Good puzzles that ramp up in difficulty at a reasonable pace. [*]Can share your solutions, and load and rate other player's solutions. [*]Level editor included, so the game isn't over when you're done with the included puzzles. [*]Very powerful state machines can be created and shared with the level editor. Several have already been uploaded that are quite impressive. [*]The price point seems about right at $10. [*]Deceptively educational :) [/list] [u]Cons, Nitpicks really[/u] [list] [*]Debugging is limited to pause and single step. A back step would be helpful. Breakpoints would be super useful for large and complex state machines. [*]Being able to save your state machine to a file in order to try something and later reload if that line of thought fails would be nice. It wouldn't really need more than just a checkpoint/restore. [*]Seeing what cube is at which state can be difficult during debugging, particularly if multiple cubes are at the same state. [/list] All in all, this is a great game for those who enjoy logic puzzles! Kudos to both the author, and the genius of Alan Turing.