itch.io

Not a solution but I felt that it would fit here. If your solution starts by taking an input like this

subleq @input @IN
;rest of the program

@input: .data 0

you can use one less byte by instead writing

@input: .data 0

.data @IN

.data 3

This works since the first address is 0 and as long as the value at address 0 is 0 it is going to modify itself. This only works as long as whenever that line is reached @input is equal to 0, as a bonus any byte that refrences @Input can be used as a constant for 0.

I don't know if this is possible with the way the game is set up, but what I would recommend is simply restarting the players solution on the second set of tests. The way I abused the system was simply hard coding the correct output for the first test above the actual solution, if the program where to run from the start for the second set of tests that hard coded output would cause the solution to fail.

since cycles and bytes are only counted for the first set of inputs optimization scores are really easy to abuse, its often possible to output the requirements for the first test above the actual programed solution. This is especially easy to do on the last level due to the nature of the levels challenge.

its been awhile since a played other zach-likes but if I remember correctly they usually use the score your solution scored the worst on. Though here the program doesn't reset between tests so I'm not sure if that's do-able.