OpenTube

How I Accidentally Set a World Record in Opus Magnum

Goodbye Galaxy

1,690,123 views

Here's a slightly self-aggrandizing story about how I became really good at a video game.

UPDATE: My Universal Solvent record was improved... by three points! It was a community effort (you love to see it). The overall layout is the same, but a very interesting reuse of the animismus arm lead ultimately to +1 area and -4 cycles.

I still have the sum4 record though!!!

Oh yeah I keep forgetting to link my Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/goodbye-gala...

20 Comments

@uperdown0 7 months ago (edited)

Goodbye_Galaxy: "Low cycles, no waste, compact."
Reddit: "Impressive, very nice...Let's see mr_puzzel's solution."

@dimomarkov8937 7 months ago

mighty algorithm pull

@robertdascoli949 4 months ago

Sometimes the algorithm is just like" trust me, you'll like this one" and I'll just keep passing it by and then one day I click on it and it's like "Yeah YouTube, you know me better than I know me."

@zanogede302 7 months ago

It's actually really sweet that they decided to drop the leaderboard stuff and focused on results instead. It brings more scientific interest rather than competitive one. I love this.

@Jugbot 7 months ago

Having an arch nemesis named mr puzzle just kills me 😂

@earthling163 5 months ago

You can't be a crazy alchemist without an arch enemy, who decades from now will be the only person who understands you.

@zorflak 7 months ago

One of the things that makes sum so beautiful is that it's the metric that changes the most from puzzle to puzzle. For area you always use pistons, for cycles you use the same equation every time, etc. In sum, nothing's ever guaranteed. You may need a hex arm, or a bi-arm, or track. You may not. You may even delude yourself into thinking you need a piston.

@VorthodWiler 7 months ago

I love how by the second tournament, you're already recognized as "the sum guy"

@marsiepann 6 months ago

i love how this video is like "important things that happened that year:

1: i had a daughter
2: LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THIS GAME I HYPER OPTIMIZED"

@UnableToucan 7 months ago

Your nemesis being basically John Puzzle himself is so fitting.

@Misa_Susaki 7 months ago

Don't let this man discover Factorio.

@pitioti 6 months ago

I love the running gag of alterning "Mister Puzzel... My nemesis" and "He is a very kind and chill guy, a good guy to the core" XD
This community seems super wholesome 😊

@RoadsOfShadow 6 months ago

Opus Magnum's greatest virtue is it's remarkable ability to make people act like actual alchemists, driven to madness in the pursuit of impossible perfection.

@rabidcabbage7230 7 months ago

I totally understand what you mean by 'look how they're supposed to be solved"

@dreamtinder 4 months ago

Film school paid off, because this video is gold.

@caliperstorm8343 7 months ago

The anonymity of the leaderboard reminds me of actual alchemy, funnily enough. It was very common for alchemists to write under the name of an ancient or mythical figure, like Democritus or Plato or Hermes, and not take credit for their own work. Nice to see that pseudepigraphic tradition carried forward by modern alchemists!

@Natibe_ 7 months ago

Area is for software engineers
Cycles is for computer engineers
Cost is for industrial engineers
And sum is for that one engineer with the Hawaiian shirt and dead eyes that's somehow in every meeting you've ever been in across ten departments.