one time i wrote what was basically a short essay on reddit about a spacechem custom puzzle in researchnet
the puzzle was called Precious Oxygen and it was about turning gold and silver into oxygen atoms
i wrote about how it's a really interesting way to tell a story just from a puzzle with inputs and outputs, like it immediately brings to mind a "my kingdom for a horse" idea where the shiny metals you get for winning at capitalism have lost all their subjective value in favour of struggling to survive
and what was even more interesting to me is that: it doesn't work. there is a way to solve the puzzle without any waste but it's extremely slow and clearly not what was intended. the way you're supposed to solve it with a decent score involves creating waste atoms, which means that the solution will eventually fail. it'll fail after the verification check is over, but if you left it running, it would eventually crash
the idea that this realization that none of it matters anymore if you can't secure your continued existence came too late was really fascinating to me and has parallels with, y'know. earth.
the creator of the puzzle saw the thread and said "i'm not going to say that any of this is invalid, it's really interesting, but i will say that i just wanted the pun in the title"