Zachtronics

Zachtronics swapped fixed achievements for scores, leaderboards and histograms. Zach Barth dropped Steam achievements after Spacechem and Infinifactory because a fixed threshold, such as beating an assignment in under 2200 cycles, felt random. Exapunks and Shenzhen I/O instead use scores, friend leaderboards and histograms of every player's solutions.

The reasoning is that his games already have a more meaningful reward system. A goal you set yourself is stronger than an arbitrary threshold someone else sets: "a goal that you set yourself is way more powerful than a goal someone else sets for you".

Showing your result against all players pushes you to optimise a working solution. In Opus Magnum any working machine passes, but a histogram plots its cost, area and cycles against the world's players. Seeing a machine far below average on one metric is enough to send a player back to rethink the design.

The player decides whether good enough is good enough, with no hard target imposed. The reviewer's reaction: "seeing my crappy performance ranked against the world's averages was more than enough motivation to get back in there".

Scoring several independent measures lets players choose how to optimise. Opus Magnum scores cost, surface area and cycles. Players can chase small machines, cheap parts, fast cycles, or a balance of all three, depending on what they find fun.

This keeps the goal player-driven and avoids a single strict target that only some players care about.