10. Conclusion

Overall I quite enjoyed this challenge. It started off as a seemingly simple, University-level assignment, but it quickly turned into something much more. Most of the puzzles were different enough from each other that it didn't feel repetitive. I'm extremely impressed with Eric Wastl for creating this challenge. I would be very interested in seeing a writeup from him on how he did it!

As a game programmer myself, I think that this kind of activity is an untapped resource for entertainment. It's obviously niche, and I can think of a few examples of similar challenges, but this one felt different in a fundamental way. The difference seems to be whether it's a game first, or a challenge first. I think the goal of finding good programmers to hire caused the focus to be more towards testing ability, rather than having fun, and ironically, for me, this caused it to be more fun and more satisfying in the end.