Best Programming Games on Steam
Games about writing code, logic, automation, algorithms, or computational thinking.
Browse all Programming →
1Stormworks: Build and Rescue - Join a world where you design, create and pilot your own air sea rescue service. Release your inner hero as you battle fierce storms out at sea to rescue those in need.
Sep 17, 2020
In this game, you can…
- pump water out of an airlock 200 meters underwater, juggling fluid pressure until the chamber clears.
- build a missile that loiters around a waypoint until a target appears, then guides itself in for a strike.
- use radar automation to coordinate an automatic drone firefighter swarm as a tiny robotic emergency fleet.
- design your own air-sea rescue fleet, then take it into storms to fight fires, repair oil rigs, and run power stations.
- wire a full command center with cameras, live monitors, and radios you built, then run the whole vehicle remotely.
- iterate a boat through failures until it becomes a 200+ km/h hydrofoil that outruns most multiplayer craft.
- design a pipeline that flexes with waves, locks together, and feeds an oil rig while a tug boat holds everything in place.
- fly a helicopter through heavy winds and land it in rough seas, where the waves are big enough to punish bad design.
2Hacknet - Hacknet is an immersive, terminal-based hacking simulator for PC. Dive down a rabbit hoIe as you follow the instructions of a recently deceased hacker, whose death may not have been the accident the media reports.
Aug 12, 2015
In this game, you can…
- In this game, you can type a command in-game and your real computer's disc tray pops open.
- In this game, you can lose your entire UI to a counter-hack, reboot into terminal-only mode, restore from backups, and hunt the attacker through your own logs.
- In this game, you can get recruited by a dead hacker's automated failsafe message after 14 days, and follow his instructions into a conspiracy.
- In this game, you can race a live trace timer, break in through ports, then wipe logs and kill the trace before you're caught.
- In this game, you can juggle limited RAM by choosing which hacking tools to run at once, because you can't load everything.
- In this game, you can hop through multiple proxy machines, open remote shells on several nodes, and overwhelm defenses with junk traffic while you keep pushing forward.
- In this game, you can plunder hacked computers for emails, chat logs, hidden files, and clues, then follow that trail across other machines.
- In this game, you can edit IRC logs or websites to insert custom names, so other people "see" your message when they check the files.
3Baba Is You - Baba Is You is a puzzle game where the rules you have to follow are present as blocks you can interact with. By manipulating them, you can change how the game works, repurpose things you find in the levels and cause surprising interactions!
Mar 13, 2019
In this game, you can…
- rewrite the rules mid-level by pushing word blocks, so you suddenly control walls, rocks, or multiple things at once.
- make lava become "Win," then touch any lava tile to instantly clear the level.
- make the level itself become something like "Win" or "Baba," so the map stops being a stage and becomes part of the rules.
- remove the "is" from "Lava is Defeat" and then walk across lava safely, since the rule is what makes it deadly.
- push "Flag is You" into place, and then you literally become the flag and move around as the goal object.
- swap who "You" is entirely, so Baba can become a wall, a skull, or anything else—shared, duplicated, or transformed mid-level.
- set up a rule chain where an object moves around and pushes word blocks for you, like a tiny self-running logic machine.
4The Farmer Was Replaced - Program and optimize a drone to automate a farm and watch it do the work for you. Collect resources to unlock better technology and become the most efficient farmer in the world. Improve your problem solving and coding skills.
Oct 10, 2025
In this game, you can…
- write code that unlocks upgrades, uses them to unlock more upgrades, and keeps going until it finishes the entire game by itself.
- restart from scratch and race for world-best times with a program that speedruns the full game automatically from the beginning.
- merge harvested pumpkins into one massive pumpkin that fills the entire field.
- write an endless harvest loop and keep the drone farming while you browse the upgrades tree.
- grow from a single grass tile into a 4x4 field, then rewrite your code each time the farm gets bigger.
- plant bushes everywhere, deliberately wait for them to grow, then harvest on the exact tick to actually get wood.
- scan a whole sunflower field to find the single plant with the most petals, then harvest in that order.
- sort cactus harvests with real sorting logic because the crop puzzle demands it.
- remove maze walls to increase treasure, then try to automate a drone that can navigate the maze on its own.
5Upload Labs - A sci-fi management game where you build and optimize your computer's system from the ground up. Connect and configure interconnected nodes to efficiently download, process, and upload files. Manage your setup, solve system challenges, and become the ultimate system architect
Oct 3, 2025
In this game, you can…
- start by downloading a tiny text file, then scale up to building quantum computer chips
- mine premium Tokens with GPU work, or breach banks by hacking for +20 Tokens per level
- feed downloaded files into an AI, evolve it into a bigger money engine, and push toward Artificial General Intelligence
- wire processors, networks, and uploaders into a resource web where one weak processor can bring the whole system down
- choose whether to mine cryptocurrency with a GPU or convert it into compute, then route that compute into files, research, and upgrades
- unlock coding and write custom optimizations, custom apps, and drivers to change how your system runs
- save your entire setup as a blueprint, enter a portal reset, then rebuild fast with accumulated upgrades
6while True: learn() - You’re a machine learning specialist who makes neural networks but your cat seems to be better at it. Now you must solve puzzles to build a cat-to-human translation system (who knows what else this cat is capable of!). Earn a fortune, buy kickass cat outfits, learn how machine learning really works!
Jan 17, 2019
In this game, you can…
- build a cat-to-human translation system so you can understand your cat.
- build a self-driving car and make your cat the pilot.
- launch startups that can make you millions in shares or wipe you out with bankruptcy and a full restart.
- drag machine-learning blocks together, hit Release, and watch the data stream through your setup.
- rearrange your whole setup to win a gold medal by hitting speed targets, even if it means sacrificing accuracy.
- solve jobs where the winning move is tailoring your logic to exact test inputs, like swapping two links to match specific outputs.
- reroute all your data into a fresh node, manually train it for a while, then undo the wiring and keep the trained piece.
- spend your freelance money on ridiculous cat gear like hats, helmets, and a Viking costume.
7Software Inc. - Construct and design buildings for optimal working conditions. Hire people to design and release software, so you can defeat the simulated competition and take over their businesses. Manage and educate your employees to make sure they are skilled and satisfied with their job.
May 1, 2015
In this game, you can…
- fight off night-time robbers by hiring security, because thieves can steal literally everything you own
- build your own operating system, then rerelease all your old software only for it so the market has to switch
- race other companies to file the first patents of the year, then collect royalties indefinitely while everyone else pays to use your tech
- start in a garage with almost no money, grind tiny contracts, then end up owning skyscrapers and subsidiaries as a billion-dollar company
- spend years building an operating system, run out of cash mid-project, survive on contract work, then finish it and watch it go from selling nothing to suddenly exploding
- buy out competing software companies, shelve their products, and corner entire markets until you're basically the only vendor left
- design an office with no grid, then micromanage walking distances, bathrooms, coffee, temperature, and elevators so the layout directly affects productivity
- set up hardware manufacturing with conveyor belts to build consoles and phones as a full second business alongside software
8Mad Games Tycoon 2 - Start your own game development studio in 1976. Build your own offices, production facilities and server rooms. Develop the games of your dreams and produce the next next-gen console. Rise from a small garage company to a huge corporation.
May 31, 2023
In this game, you can…
- design, manufacture, and revise your own console line, then drive sales with exclusives, warranties, and Slim/Pro upgrades.
- buy rival studios and force them to make only games for your console, or grind out a single franchise forever.
- play up to four-player business warfare: trade tech, send funds, team up, or sabotage each other while racing the charts.
- start in a garage, sign an exclusive publishing deal, and have it erase your debt and fund your next studio era.
- build your own game engine, license it to other studios, and live off royalties when your big projects bleed money.
- pour $20 million into an MMO for five years, launch right as the trend hits, then keep it alive with paid DLC every three months.
- run as a pure publisher: sign exclusives, republish hits, and ship budget, deluxe, collector's, GOTY, and bundle editions.
- go from one shaky hit to a sequel empire, then turn the original franchise into an MMO that earns around $168 million.
9Opus Magnum - Opus Magnum is the latest open-ended puzzle game from Zachtronics, the creators of SpaceChem, Infinifactory, and SHENZHEN I/O. Design and build machines that assemble potions, poisons, and more using the alchemical engineer’s most advanced tool: the transmutation engine!
Dec 7, 2017
In this game, you can…
- place your inputs and outputs anywhere, then build across an effectively unlimited grid with the full toolset from the start.
- export your working solution as an animated GIF that loops forever and share the machine in motion.
- turn raw materials into stranger products by bonding, unbonding, and transforming them in long repeating chains of steps.
- build a ridiculous sprawling machine that still passes as long as it keeps producing the right product.
- script each arm step by step on a looping timeline, then watch the whole factory move in sync like sheet music.
- solve a puzzle, check your rank for cost/cycles/area, then immediately rebuild to climb the histograms.
- make wildly different valid machines for the same puzzle, then come back later and prove a totally new layout still works.
10Arctic Eggs - Eggs: perfection in two parts. The simple whites. The sublime yolk. Each the lesser without its partner. Chorus and verse. A symphony of flavor. The catchy tune reminding us of warm baths and late-night movies. The elevator music to whatever lies beyond.
May 16, 2024
In this game, you can…
- take orders to fry absurd stuff like cigarettes, beer, cockroaches, and even a live pufferfish.
- keep ice cubes inside a shot glass while you fry the glassed-up ice on the skillet.
- fry bullets until they explode in your pan.
- cook only while you keep the frying pan moving, wiggling and flipping so the food doesn't slide out.
- stack up a custom breakfast of one egg and 12 cigarettes, then serve it like it's normal.
- light a cigarette to check how many hungry people are left.
- watch dialogue backspace and correct itself mid-conversation like the world is rewriting what it meant to say.
- feed enough strangers to unlock locked doors and meet the "weird hungry freaks" waiting behind them.
