Can the task of building a factory on a distant planet be exciting? Factorio from Wube Software proves that we don’t need gigantic space battles to keep us on the edge of our seats. The idea of creating something really complex, and then expanding it along with the help of your friends can be just as satisfying and fun.
Who needs luck? I’ve got science!
This quote from MDK 2’s character Doctor Fluke Hawkins seems to fit perfectly with the main character’s situation in Factorio. At first sight, an engineer stranded on the alien planet with overwhelming odds poised against them seems dire. A huge distance from home and a hostile environment can make anybody lose hope for survival.
Yet our hero has one useful asset up his sleeve – knowledge about technology, industry, and logistics. By implementing all of those skills, players can use resources to create a factory to build a new spaceship and with it – pave the road back home.
Build and expand
Just one glance at Factorio's gameplay and you’ll notice that we’re dealing with THE managerial game way ahead of its time. The industrial complex you can build in this game is huge, with all the small intricacies engineers and builders love.
You begin by chopping trees, mining ore, and crafting mechanical arms and transport belts by hand. In time, your possibilities grow. The small factory becomes a true industrial powerhouse, with huge solar fields, oil refining and cracking manufacturing, and the deployment of construction and logistic robots. You’ll even have to set up a defense system against the hostile world surrounding your factory because as in our world, it's far easier to destroy something than rebuild it.
Friends with logistic benefits
What sets
Factorio apart from other managerial strategies is the scale on which gamers can co-create unique gaming experiences. This involves not only the multiplayer mode in which players can split industrial and logistic tasks among themselves but through mods as well. Since its initial release as the game in development in 2016, Factorio witnessed a whole stream of mods created by gamers who would like not only to tweak gaming experience but sometimes alter them completely. The creators of Factorio also decided to embrace gamers’ ingenuity fully as it helped to create the game’s 1.0 version we can enjoy today.
So, which mods are some of the fan favorites? Firstly, we have the Resource Spawner Overhaul. As the name suggests, this mod overrides the original resource spawner present in the title and makes the gameplay more dynamic. The Bottleneck mod, on the other hand, will alert you when machines stall or delay the work of the entire factory.
Some of the mods are quite handy. The Air Filtering mod, for example, builds a machine that helps to reduce pollution and thus stay alive longer, while the Rail Tanker mod adds a tank you can use to transport resources like liquids without using barrels. Check
the official mod portal for other cool Factorio mods.
Overall, if you are looking for a management sim that is big on gameplay, there’s a lot to love about Factorio. It’s received positive reviews from Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Eurogamer, and the game has a huge fanbase of active gamers that can make the experience even more fun.
Give
Factorio a try if this is your type of game. You’ll be surprised by how satisfying building stuff can be!
