CO + 2H = CH2O.
In SpaceChem
by Zachtronics, you are a "reaction engineer" in charge of running chemical processes through literally nanotechnological processes: you pick up atoms from one end of your reactors, add and remove bonds to transform them into the desired atoms or molecules, and then spit them out the other side. As the game progresses, you end up with more complicated inputs — from single atoms to molecules to randomized assortments of molecules (which then must be sorted and shipped out) and beyond.As you progress through the game, a plotline is slowly revealed, starting as you begin your employment at the eponymous company, SpaceChem.
Compare Opus Magnum, a similar game by the same devs.
This game provides examples of:
- Absurdly Short Level: The tutorial level that teaches players that pipes can cross has no reactors. The entire point of the game is to program reactors, so the level is solved very quickly.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Seemingly the case with the Isambard MMD in the Danopth defense mission. It's later revealed that it was most likely sabotage by a technician mind-controlled by the local Eldritch Abomination.
- Anyone Can Die: And will. If there is a named character, they are probably doomed, usually due to one of the local horrors you're unfortunate enough to encounter on your journey. Notable deaths include Joel (blanked and put out of his misery via gunshot), Tim (exploding head), and Marianne (asteroid impact).
- Art Major Physics: Chemistry doesn't actually work like this—molecules are three-dimensional, a machine to pick up single atoms could never be built, different elements are different sizes, fusion and fission Do Not Work That Way, etc. — but that doesn't really matter, does it?
- Artistic License – Chemistry: Although the game is reasonably accurate with regards to certain details, and is in fact used as educational software in chemistry classes for certain topics, most of the chemistry is vastly oversimplified, inaccurate or plain impossible. Most notably, near the end of the game, the reactions introduce elements that don't exist.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The defense missions consist of the player character fighting off a gargantuan Eldritch Abomination that easily dwarf them, whatever buildings happen to be in the level and even the surrounding terrain.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Yarugolek, the Cydnidae Adept takes the form of a giant insectoid that uses the remnants of a mining robot as its shell.
- Boss Subtitles: For the Eldritch Abomination bosses at the end of each planet. Amusingly, even the "boss" of the 63 Corvi DLC campaign gets one, namely "Corvi - Type K Main Sequence Star".
- Combat Tentacles: Gorgathar uses these to attack the SpaceChem facilities during the defense mission on Sikutar.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The boss missions end up very much like this. The player, a simple chemical engineer who diddles with molecules, finds increasingly creative ways to destroy massive monsters that could otherwise easily obliterate the very planet they are standing on.
- Demo Bonus: You can load a demo save into the full game to continue where you left off.
- Demonic Possession: The monsters largely seem to be capable of this, killing the host in the process. This happens to Joel and eventually to Bruce Novak.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Fail to defend your control center, and the proprietary Reaction Mediation Device in said center annihilates the planet—which includes you. At least in theory—the events on-screen are a simulation, and a failed solution means only means you go back to the drawing board.
- Eldritch Abomination: The last level on each planet (save the tutorial) is a battle to destroy one of these. They typically end up remotely possessing and/or causing the gruesome deaths of several named characters, and killing large swathes of the company's local workforce in their rampages.
- Future Food Is Artificial: One of the products SpaceChem manufactures is ... fish cakes. Apparently, that's all SpaceChem employees get to eat.
- Gratuitous Greek: The input and output regions are labelled with Greek letters. Also, the fictional elements.
- Guide Dang It!: Certain quirks of the game's mechanics are never explained to the player; most are never explicitly required, but can make a huge difference in cycle or symbol efficiency. One notable example is bonder priority, which determines how atoms are bound together when using a "Bond +" instruction while multiple mutually exclusive bonds are possible.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Implied in the Alkonost boss-battle. Said boss is introduced as a "Defiler-Alchemist". In that level, you sort "tainted water" pumped from the sea; apparently some of the hydrogen atoms in the water have been transmuted into uranium. (Artistic License – Chemistry at work here, since those molecules would be unstable IRL, and would look nothing like water.) You then feed those same uranium atoms into a particle accelerator to fire the beam that kills the boss.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Certain levels are named "Prelude to a Migraine" and "No Ordinary Headache". It makes complete sense with the associated story chapters, but as you would expect, this is where the game starts throwing curveballs at you (randomized input, etc.).
- Level Editor: The Research Net's Journal of Reaction Engineering, which contains a comprehensive editor and nearly 200 official user-made levels.
- MacGyvering: Defense missions always require you to supply a machine built from whatever you have on hand at the base. One memorable boss requires you to turn a transport rocket into a nuke, using water as your only raw material.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: Gorgathar, the Horror from the Deep apparently uses this to blow up Tim's head, through a headset no less.
- MegaCorp: SpaceChem, the titular company. They primarily deal in exploiting exoplanets for resources, but dabble in most anything else that is necessary for them to be self-sustaining during lengthy space missions.
- Mind over Matter: Bha Shogth, the Controller apparently manipulates objects within Atropos Station using this method. It can also manipulate much larger objects from outside the station, as Marianne finds out the hard way.
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Nintendo Hard: The game is infamous for its rapidly increasing difficulty level. Only a handful of players have ever had the patience to finish the game, as by the end, designing a solution can take a dozen hours or more, depending on if the basic concept is sound or not. - Pyramid Power: Quororque, the Defiler-Alchemist takes the form of a giant floating pyramid topped by a single giant eye.
- Remixed Level: World 6 level "Danger Zone" and World 7 level "The Blue Danube" are identical, the only difference being that the latter is where you are introduced to the flip-flop command.
- Shout-Out:
- The first level of Hephaestus IV is titled, "Like a Boss."
- An optional challenge on the same planet is named "KOHCTPYKTOP", after a previous work (Kohctpyktop: Engineer of the People) by the author. The level has you produce silicon fragments, which are the main element you use in that game.
- One of the user-made puzzles involves creating C3H8. The name of the level is "Propane Accessories".
- Star Killing: The "boss" of the "63 Corvi" DLC mini-campaign is the titular star, billed as "Corvi - Type K Main Sequence Star". The goal of the "battle" is to fill a drop container with a "proton moderator" that will slow the thermonuclear fusion inside the star so that it collapses under its own gravity.
- Stealth Pun:
- One of the user-made puzzles requires you to sort a randomized sequence of hydrogen and helium atoms, without access to a sensor. The name of the level? "Nonsense!"
- Another user-made puzzle requires you to correct impossible isomers of sodium hydroxide; the name of the level is "Lies" (a pun on "Lyes").
- Stop Poking Me!: Click on the cargo ships that pass in the background on the main menu. See what happens.
- Unexpected Genre Change: While most of the levels have you designing machines to meet quotas of output molecules, the defense missions require you to design a machine that you can use to respond to external events.
- Unobtainium: With fusion reactors, it's possible to make atoms of elements of very high atomic number (up to 109), some of which in reality are postulated to exist but cannot be sustained for any realistic length of time.
- Elements Θ, Ω, Σ, and Δ, which if you managed to split one (require user-made level), you'll discover that they are actually atom with super-large atomic number, with Θ having atomic number of 200 and Δ 202.
- A cross-promotion with Team Fortress 2 added a new set of levels based on the Australium atom.
- Unperson: You — it's heavily implied that sometime during or after the events of the ending, SpaceChem expunged every last trace of evidence of your employment.
- Time-Limit Boss: The bosses must be defeated before they destroy the command center, with no exact time remaining shown. The first one, Isambard MMD, requires three targets to be filled up within individual time limits and not done too early either.
- We Have Reserves: SpaceChem has a lot of "unfortunate accidents" and "anomalies" at its colonies. Doesn't stop them from expanding across the galaxy.
