Catching us a little off guard, a new game that's only days away from release was announced this week. U.V.S. Nirmana is the latest programming game from Coincidence, makers of Kaizen and carriers of the Zachtronics torch.
The info about the upcoming release, even though it's just a few days out, is relatively sparse: the Steam page tells us that you're setting out on an interstellar journey on the "Unreturning Void Ship Nirmana", encountering and aiding distant galactic civilizations along the way. Programming puzzles naturally come into the picture at some point, but exactly how they're related to this quest isn't made very clear. Perhaps the visuals of pipes are the internals of your titular ship, systems being added and power rerouted as you progress.
Oddly there's no trailer I can find for Nirmana, so instead here's a clip of Joe playing some of Coincidence's previous release Kaizen on a stream a while back:
I've gone through this explanation at least a few times before, but for anyone who's new to this genre niche or needs a briefing on these studios specifically: Zachtronics was a studio founded by lead designer Zach Barth, and they became well known in the puzzle-adjacent world for making deep and complex programming/automation/engineering games that task you with building, coding and optimizing interconnected systems and networks of various kinds. Usually you're constructing something and then sitting back to watch it run, hopefully accomplishing your goal.
A few years ago Zachtronics officially closed its doors, only for ex-employees (including Zach himself) to announce the founding of a new studio, Coincidence, who have gone on to make... some very similar games to what the old studio was known for, in addition to some less conventional side projects.
As I said, there's not a ton of info about the intricacies of the systems you're playing with this time around in Nirmana, but by now we know a Zachtronics/Coincidence programming grid when we see one. Here's what they do say so far about the mechanics of the new game:
Conduits, signals, and constraints must be brought into accordance with optimal patterns. Design pipe networks that route energy flows from the vega drive engine and other sources. Modify their behavior with the control matrix while minimizing flux. Tools include sensors, valves, multiplexers and more. Their skillful use will be necessary to assist the various life forms and civilizations that you will encounter along the way.
Optimization and comparison of your solutions (as well as tools for creating custom levels) are advertised to be present, and we'd expect no less from a game of this lineage.
As is tradition, there's also a new solitaire mini-game teased in the available screenshots: this one appears to be a sci-fi take on the ancient African boardgame Oware that consists of dropping counters into bowls (usually known in western countries by the name Mancala, which actually refers to a whole category of similar games.)
U.V.S Nirmana is out on Steam on Monday, May 4th. You can wishlist the game now, but you won't have to wait long for the release.
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