This unfortunately makes Zachtronics games a non-starter for me. Software development and Zachtronics games is a fast track to burnout. Their last two involve literal programming.

For some reason, Opus Magnum didn't cause the "I do this all day already" reaction yet for me, despite clearly being a programming game. Maybe it's the theme and presentation of it? Or maybe it's just the relaxation of the bugs at least being obvious.

I think these games seem like fun (despite being similar to _work_) as they are free of consequences... the player can mess up and walk away without it impacting their daily life, that likely takes a lot of stress away from the activity.

Yeah, I think a lot of things that are stressful about work go away when you aren't afraid of the consequences of fucking up. It turns out that you can be both extremely productive and quite relaxed at work if you don't care about getting fired.

Interesting. Looking back at the toys I played with growing up, and how quickly I want to move onto new software development problems, I'm inclined to agree, but I wonder if there is some balance. Perhaps variety is the key. KSP is good for rocketry and light physics. Anything good for Chemistry?

I never got that feeling about Factorio (though I don't do EE), but I did with SpaceChem

Likewise; I think that's because (my interaction with) Factorio is much simpler; it's scratching the "build and organize" itch. I find this game to be relaxing after a hard day at work. (I'm sure this would change if I was trying to build and debug a complex circuit network).

As others have mentioned, Zachlikes are basically programming, and in particular the debugging / pipeline optimization parts can quickly drain my enthusiasm if I've been doing a lot of hard coding at work.

Yeah, that's true. I enjoy a bit of SpaceChem, but I think it would be better for non-programmers and for discovering kids who had the aptitude.