Author here. Yeah, the first level is special and perhaps half-baked. It felt like cheating to start with the NAND-gate as the atomic component since transistors are not NAND-gates. So I start with electric relays (since they logically correspond to transistors but are easier to visualize). But I didn't want to get into realistic simulation of electronic circuits with all the complexity this entails.
May I ask how you would have preferred to solve the first level if the game didn't have limitations?
Is your problem with the user interface, i.e. how to connect wires from input to output, or is is with the logical problem of getting the correct output?
May I ask how you would have preferred to solve the first level if the game didn't have limitations?