Office of Operations

Each level gives you an input conveyor and a target transformation. Assemble a program from simple instructions, inbox, outbox, copy, add, subtract and jumps, using a few memory tiles. Run it: it must produce the right outputs and generalise to hidden cases, not just the sample. Some levels disable an instruction to force a fresh approach.

• Click instructions to add them to your program
• Set operands and reorder lines with the controls on each row
• Run to test against the sample, then make sure it generalises
• Solve each level to advance to the next, harder spec

• Desktop: click palette instructions, edit operand fields, use the up/down/delete buttons, click Run
• Phone & tablet: tap instructions and the row controls, then tap Run

• Passing the sample isn't enough, picture other inputs and make the logic general
• Use jumps to build loops so one short routine handles a whole conveyor
• When the shift manager disables an instruction, look for an equivalent built from the rest

Office of Operations is an assembly-style programming puzzle about instructions, memory and loops, showing how computers really run.

• Skills: low-level programming, instructions and memory, loops, computational thinking
• Best for: roughly grades 8–12 (ages 13+)
• For parents & teachers: how computers run instructions at the lowest level.

The instruction set here — inbox, outbox, copy, add, subtract, jumps and a few memory tiles — is Human Resource Machine's, the visual-programming puzzle game Tomorrow Corporation released in 2015. Its whole idea was to use an office worker moving objects between an inbox, an outbox and storage as a metaphor for assembly language.

That metaphor is unusually faithful. Real assembly has no variables, only registers and addresses, so "carry this to the shelf and come back" is genuinely what a MOV instruction does.

The requirement that a program must generalise to hidden cases, not merely handle the sample, is the part that makes it teaching rather than puzzling. Hard-coding the visible answer is the mistake every beginner makes, and there is no way to be told off for it except by a test you did not get to see.

Office of Operations is an original assembly-style programming puzzle about instructions, memory and loops. Play free in your browser with daily and practice levels.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.