When comparing Gateways vs SpaceChem, the Slant community recommends SpaceChem for most people. In the question“What are the best Puzzle games on Steam?” SpaceChem is ranked 10th while Gateways is ranked 32nd. The most important reason people chose SpaceChem is:
In particular, abstraction and concurrent programming skills could be gleaned from the game as it uses broad techniques often used by computer programmers.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Just the right amount of content
The game is long enough that the player gets to master each of the unique mechanics, but not so long that you get bored of any of them.
Pro Portal x 4
Gateways has the same formula as the great Portal, except that it's in 2D, BUT, they introduce 3 new types of portal guns, a gun that makes you smaller/bigger, a gun that shifts gravity 90 or 180 degrees, and the best one, a time travelling gun. The last part of the game lets you used all the 4 guns together for mind bending puzzles.
Pro Could help with real life programming skills
In particular, abstraction and concurrent programming skills could be gleaned from the game as it uses broad techniques often used by computer programmers.
Pro Easy to learn, hard to master puzzle
Spacechem's mechanics are pretty simple to learn and only takes minutes to understand how the game works. Of course mastering the gameplay is a whole different matter.
Pro Allows for short or long play sessions
The gameplay allows for a player to come in and solve a single puzzle in a short amount of time or to sit and tinker with a puzzle for hours trying to devise the perfect solution and contraption. It all comes down to what one want to put into the game but the free form of the puzzle solving is what makes it great for anyones playstyle be it short or long.
Pro Light on the system
The system requirements are quite low at only requiring a 2Ghz processor, 1G of ram and 300MB of hard drive space. Basically this game should work on just about any computer from the last 10-15 years.
Pro Endless gameplay through user created solutions
An individual players choices of components, arrangements or factories used will result in completely different experiences and problems/puzzles when compared to another users experience. A truly individualized experience that expands the games replayability.
Cons
Con Lacks clean or clever puzzles
Unlike Portal, a game with high polish that shows in its puzzle designs Gateways has a clear lack of polish to its puzzles which makes for a subpar experience as it the games design can lead to problems interpreting the puzzles appropriately.
Con Annoying action-y 'boss' stages
At the end of each 'world', there is a boss stage in which you have to perform a unique task. This wouldn't be too bad, but in these levels, you can use blocks that you can activate in real time to change the way your program runs. This often means lots of manual work and a lot of padding to hit the buttons at the right time, which is unnecessary for a puzzle game (and, given that you cannot rewind, also stressful if your program is very tight). I would imagine that the best scores for these levels also overly abuse this feature to make solutions that would be almost impossible without use of macros, for instance.
Con Late game is difficult
In later levels some players may reach a point where the game has become too difficult or frustrating, which may discourage any more play time with the game.